


Things I Want to Say (But Don't)

by shriketrek



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Bottom Derek Hale, Bottom Stiles Stilinski, Established Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Explicit Sexual Content, Frontotemporal Dementia, Future Fic, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Obviously they switch is all I'm saying, Semi-Public Sex, Sick Stiles, Stilinski Family Feels, Top Derek Hale, Top Stiles Stilinski, i had to change the rating to explicit, seven years after 3b, we always end up here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-13
Updated: 2014-10-12
Packaged: 2018-01-15 13:36:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1306759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shriketrek/pseuds/shriketrek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was supposed to be over. His seventeen-year-old self thought—well, there he was, an evil fox spirit recently expelled from his body and the illness he’d thought he had disappeared. It made him feel invincible and he somehow never suspected—</p><p>He remembers, after the MRI that confirmed he was all clear, seeing his father shaking with relief just before pulling him into a bone-crushing hug and they—they cried silently into each other’s shoulders for long moments, the remains of the Stilinski family, knowing that everything was going to be okay. </p><p>It was supposed to be okay.</p><p>-</p><p>Several years after the nogitsune is expelled from his body, Stiles is diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is my first Teen Wolf fic. 
> 
> One of my favorite fanfiction storylines is "YOUR FAVE IS SERIOUSLY ILL" so I naturally had to do more with this frontotemporal dementia thing. This idea came to me I think right after 3x18, Riddled, and I'm not sure what they'll do with the FTD on the show, but I wanted to get the first chapter out before canon obliterated it.

Several years after the nogitsune is expelled from his body, Stiles wakes up sobbing and screaming, with a pair of arms wrapped tight around his shoulders.

He has the occasional nightmare, of course, everyone does, even if they’re _not_ wrapped up in the supernatural shitstorm that is Beacon Hills—directly after the possession his sleep wasn’t peaceful for the better part of a year—but since then, it’s been nothing like—like this. He hasn’t been trapped inside the nightmare shouting and pleading for minutes, or tried to get out of bed still asleep, hasn’t screamed like he was dying on the way out.

The quiet that follows is tense and meaningful, and his own heavy breaths ring loudly in his ears.

They don’t say anything about it that night—one incident, after all, doesn’t make a pattern. Stiles just curls up into Derek’s side, trembling. He tucks his arms in between their bodies and concentrates on the warmth of Derek’s skin and the solidity of his presence against and around him as they slowly fall asleep again.

The next week he opens the silverware drawer, about to settle down for a mid-morning breakfast before he has to go to work, and just stares down at the assorted utensils with furrowed brows. Derek is sitting at the table with a mug of coffee, messing with his phone, but the sudden lack of movement and noise from the kitchen catches his attention after a few seconds and he turns to look at Stiles.

“Hey—Stiles,” he says.

Stiles comes out of it sluggishly, inhaling deeply through his nose before turning his head to blink at Derek. He still looks a bit confused, his mouth curved down in a frown, and his voice is a bit absent when he says, “What? Yeah—I’m fine.” But by the time he’s made his way to the table with a fork and spoon for each of them and a plate of toast and sausage links, the confusion is gone. He smiles, though the worried feeling in his gut that has dissipated over the past couple of days is back and he doesn’t feel much like eating. He still does it, though, because Derek is watching him carefully and this _doesn’t mean anything,_ not yet.

A few nights later Derek is out of town—he didn’t want to go, but Stiles assured him (multiple times, growing more and more irritated as Derek kept _pressing the issue_ until he was saying it with gritted teeth) that he’d be fine. He goes to sleep in his bed and wakes up, from a nightmare, he thinks (though the memory of it disappears completely as soon as he is no longer sleeping) in the living room, near the doorway, turned toward the wall, shirt and underwear soaked through with sweat. His body locks itself tight as panic and confusion rip through his limbs, his chest, making his skin tingle and his lungs ache—but after a few seconds, the disorientation wears off and his lower lip trembles. He sucks it into his mouth, biting down, but his face is already scrunching up and he’s looking at the wall with his view obstructed by tears. He inhales, shakily, and at the crest of it a small, aborted sob makes its way out of his throat. The tears spill out of his eyes and he wipes them away.

 _Come on, Stiles,_ he tells himself, squeezing his eyes tight and furrowing his eyebrows until he no longer feels quite so sad and helpless and the tears stop burning behind his eyelids. He goes back to bed and doesn’t wake up until his alarm clock goes off.

\----

“Let’s go on a trip,” Stiles says one day, curled up on the couch next to Derek with his legs flung over Derek’s lap.

Derek makes a scoffing sound, not moving his eyes from their joined hands. He’s playing with Stiles’s long fingers, achingly gentle. “A trip to where?”

“I don’t know,” Stiles says, and then he shifts a little, trying to get comfortable. “I just feel like going somewhere. Let’s go to the ocean.”

“Stiles, it’s nine o’clock at night.”

“So what? It’s not that far.”

Derek glances over at him, giving him the patented Hale Look, the one that speaks volumes of exasperation in just a squint and the flattening of the eyebrows.

“Come _on_ , Derek, I want to go to the ocean. The last time I went was with my mom.”

The word flips a switch, casting an entirely different mood over the room. They both fall silent for a moment.

Stiles, looking stricken, murmurs, “I can wait to go to the ocean.”

The next morning, when Stiles snaps at Derek for asking him if he slept okay (he didn’t; he hasn’t been), he recognizes it as another symptom and slumps down into a chair at the table, ducking his head down behind his arms. He thinks back at the past couple weeks and takes note of every spike of aggravation. They all seemed— _justified_ , at least a little, and it wasn’t like he was constantly in a state of rage, but—he can see now, it was _more_ , it’s been _escalating_.

Derek kneels down beside the chair, his hands moving soothingly over Stiles’s body. Stiles lowers his arms, turns his head toward Derek.

Derek’s eyes are open, pleading, and Stiles hears _I want you to be okay_ and _I’m here, tell me what I can do, please._ Stiles _loves_ him, reaches out to touch his neck, his face. He leans down to press his cheek to Derek’s, slide his nose against the skin in front of his ear. He pulls back and they kiss, languid and firm kisses that barely _touch_ the feeling in Stiles, the desire to have Derek and be close to him—not sexually, not really—not only, just—

Stiles breaks off, stroking his thumbs over Derek’s stubble.

“I’m okay,” he says. His voice is low and hoarse. “You go take care of your wolfy business, I’m fine here.”

“Are you sure?” Derek asks. He and Scott are meeting with Chris Argent in a little while about beefing up the supernatural security around Beacon Hills—a project they started a few years ago but is incredibly slow-going due to creature attacks and threats of varying levels taking up their time.

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

They say their goodbyes with a little more urgency than usual. Stiles sits down on the couch after Derek is gone, rubbing a hand back and forth through his hair.

It could be supernatural, he thinks, like it was last time. But he just… doesn’t think it is. The apartment, his Dad’s house, the station, even his damn Jeep—every place around town he visits regularly is protected heavily by magic at this point. His own _person_ is guarded by magic. It’s always possible there’s a Big Bad out there that can get around it, but—he _has_ no guard against hereditary illness. He’s a big fan of the Occam’s Razor principle, and right now, it’s telling him that he’s just _sick_.

He sniffs, rests his head on his hand and feels his elbow dig into the skin of his thigh, just above the knee. He pulls out his phone and opens up his dad’s work schedule on Google Calendar. Today is his day off. He was pretty sure that was the case, but—he doesn’t really trust his memory right now.

He doesn’t want to do this. He doesn’t want to hurt his dad, but he would never _dream_ of keeping this from him. If he has it, if he’s suffering from the same thing his mom went through, then it belongs to the two of them, the husband and son she left behind, more than anyone else.

So he inhales deeply, fills his chest with air to give himself courage, somehow, like he needs to make himself bigger, needs to be as far removed as possible from the empty shell he feels like he’s becoming. He dials his dad’s number and presses send, holds the phone up to his ear. While the phone rings, he has to cling desperately to a sense of calm because he feels like he’s gonna totally lose it any second and it seems incredibly important, like it always does, that he does not cry. His shaking hand grips the phone too tight and his knuckles hurt with it by the time his dad picks up.

“Hello,” the sheriff says on the other end. He sounds cheerful and Stiles hates himself a little.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Hey there, Stiles,” his father says as though he didn’t know who it was before he picked up; the sheriff is a product of a time before caller ID and is unable, or unwilling, to change his phone habits to keep up with the times. He’s clearly pleased to be hearing from his son.

Stiles can picture it—his dad sitting at the table, flipping through the paper or an old case file with the sun filtering in through the window, sipping coffee out of his old Beacon Hills High School mug.

Stiles swallows thickly. His throat is so _dry_.

“Um, so, I was just calling to see if—if I could come over. You know, see my pops on his day off.”

“Derek’s busy, then?” his dad teases.

“Ha. Funny. Can’t a young man just feel like visiting his dad? But yes. In a complete and utter coincidence, Derek does happen to be busy.”

“Mhm,” the sheriff says, and Stiles can practically see the fond smile on his face. “Of course you can come over, kiddo. When can I expect you?”

“Around lunch? I can bring something over. Sandwiches from that new place that opened up down the street from the station, maybe?”

“Absolutely. Get me a Reuben.”

Stiles huffs a laugh. “Yeah, okay. See you in a couple hours.”

He hangs up and a tear slides down his nose. He swipes it away and sniffs loudly. His intention is to sit and wait until his eyes are dry again, but he’s struck suddenly by how _unfair_ this is—it was supposed to be _over_. His seventeen-year-old self thought—well, there he was, an evil fox spirit recently expelled from his body and the illness he’d thought he had disappeared. It made him feel _invincible_ and he somehow never suspected—

He remembers, after the MRI that confirmed he was all clear, seeing his father shaking with relief just before pulling him into a bone-crushing hug and they—they cried silently into each other’s shoulders for long moments, the remains of the Stilinski family, knowing that everything was going to be _okay_.

It was _supposed_ to be okay.

He can’t help it now—he leans forward and presses his forearm over his eyes as a raw sob wrenches its way out of him and hot tears spill out over his skin.

\----

He lets himself into his dad’s house a little before one o’clock. It’s calm and peaceful in the early afternoon; dust floats in the rays of light that slant at a narrow angle in through the windows. 

“That you, Stiles?”

“Yep.”

“In here,” his father calls from the kitchen. He looks up when Stiles enters and says, “Did you get my Reuben?”

“Yes, I got your— _obscenely_ oversized Reuben,” Stiles says, dumping the sandwiches on the table.

His dad digs into the bag and pulls each item out. His face falls open into a look of shock when he reaches in and comes back out with two servings of very greasy fries.

Stiles curses inwardly. He was hoping to save the depressing conversation for after lunch, but he just wasn’t able to resist getting those fries as a treat, a sort of _sorry I might be slowly dying the same way Mom did_ thing, and now his dad knows something’s up.

“Son,” the sheriff begins in the faux-gentle way he has of interrogating suspects and rambunctious growing boys alike—it’s the tone that says he _knows_ you’re going to give him the information he wants, so _why don’t you just give it up now_? “Is there a reason you’ve suddenly abandoned your campaign to ensure that I never eat anything greasy and delicious again as long as I live?”

“Which will be a _long time_ , if I have anything to say about it,” Stiles presses, reiterating the old argument. “And—yeah.” His long arm makes a gesture toward the sandwiches. “There’s—something I wanted to talk to you about.”

The sheriff is quiet for a moment, looking between Stiles and their lunch a few times, looking resigned. “Should we eat first?”

“Yeah. Probably.”

So they do, making small talk about how things are going down at the station (Stiles likes to joke about the “seedy underbelly” of Beacon Hills, which basically amounts to recreational drug use at either of the two clubs in town—most of the real trouble around here is not really in the cops’ jurisdiction). Soon, Stiles’s dad is leaning back in his chair, munching slowly on his fries while the remains of his Reuben lie scattered on their paper wrapping in front of him, and he sends his son an appraising look.

“Better say what you need to while I’ve still got your blow-softening fries.”

This is it. Stiles feels the bottom of his stomach drop out and his hands reach out automatically to take hold of a napkin and begin ripping it to shreds. His eyes drop to the tabletop and he huffs out a breath, struggling to find the words around the sharp, rolling nausea he suddenly feels under his sternum and up in his throat.

 _I’m sorry_ , he wants to say. He wishes he’d written down a list of his symptoms so he could hand it over and let the lines of his messy handwriting do the talking for him.

“Uh—” He clears his throat and ducks his head, scratching at the hair on the nape of his neck. “Man, this _sucks_. This is just not going to be a fun conversation, Dad.”

He steals a glance up at the sheriff, who has put down his fries and is looking worried _for real_ now, leaning forward toward the edge of the table like he’s ready to get up and come over at any second.

“What’s wrong, Stiles?”

“I’ve been—sleepwalking again,” he whispers finally. “Night terrors, I guess. And, um—I just—I haven’t been _right_. I get—I get confused, I get irritable…” He’s using the terminology that would show up in a hospital file, and deliberately, because he wants his dad to get it without him having to _say_ it.

He looks up and sees that this is exactly what’s happened. His father is nodding slowly in acknowledgment, his mouth pressed tight and his eyes soft and sad.

“I think I need to have some tests done.” His voice breaks a little.

“ _Stiles_ ,” his dad says, getting up out of his seat and crossing the short distance between them. He places a hand on the back of Stiles’s neck, solid and firm, before pulling him into a hug. Stiles presses forward into the warmth of his father’s chest, face contorting in the fabric of his old cotton t-shirt. It smells so _much_ like home and all at once his heart aches intensely.

His shoulders jerk as he cries, hoarse sobs that come from deep in his chest, each one terribly slow in making its way out, building in him and bursting out when it feels like too much to hold in. He can feel his dad shaking, too, and maybe he’s crying but Stiles can’t tell; for the moment, he can’t find it in himself to focus enough on anything but his own gut-wrenching pain.

“I don’t know what to do,” Stiles whispers when the tears have died down some. He hasn’t moved, and neither has his father. His words are muffled in his dad’s tear-stained shirt. “I’m scaring myself, I’m scaring Derek. I feel like I’m losing it.”

“We’ll get through it, Stiles. No matter what happens, kid, you’ve got a lot of people who love you and who are gonna be here for you.”

They sit like this for another few moments before Stiles finally pulls back, using his sleeve to wipe off his face before the sheriff makes an exasperated noise and hands him a napkin.

“Do we know that it’s not something—y’know—supernatural?” the sheriff asks as Stiles is using the napkin to clear out his nose.

Short of breath, Stiles huffs out a small sigh and says, “Can’t rule it out yet, I suppose, but I don’t think so.”

“Have you thought about what you’re going to do?”

Stiles knows what he means by that. If he has it, he could take the bite—Scott would do it, still, of course he would if it would save Stiles’s life—or he could stay human and steadily deteriorate until the illness kills him.

It seems like an impossible choice, so he just shakes his head, helpless.

“Okay, son, okay. That’s fine. We may be jumping the gun here anyway, right? First thing we need to do is get you in for a scan.”

They manage to schedule an appointment for the next day—after his dad explains the symptoms and the family history, there’s no trouble reserving the MRI suite for an hour.

Stiles starts to feel remorse clenching up his stomach and making him feel like he’s going to choke as he watches his dad hang up the phone. “Sorry to ruin your day off,” he says, knowing that his dad won’t see it that way but meaning it all the same, with his entire being.

“Hey, don’t start with that.” The sheriff is pointing a stern finger at him, drawing his eyebrows together. “You’re my _son_ , Stiles, and none of this is your fault.”

Stiles nods, throat tight and eyes burning again. He inhales, getting the tears under control, and says in a fragile voice, “I’m gonna get going before I start bawling. I really don’t need to redecorate the place with my snot. You gonna—be okay here?”

“Yeah.” Sheriff Stilinski takes a step closer to Stiles and claps him on the back, keeping his hand there afterward. Its presence is surprisingly comforting.

“You should, um,” Stiles starts. He scrunches up his face a little and scratches the back of his head. “You should call Melissa, if you want, let her know. I just—I think I’m gonna wait until we get the results tomorrow to tell anyone else.”

“Sure, just as long as you don’t wait too long.”

“No, I won’t. Of course not. I just want to make sure _before_ I go around worrying everybody that there’s even something to worry about.”

“Alright. Be here tomorrow at eleven and I’ll drive you there.”

Stiles says his goodbyes and beats a hasty retreat. He meets Derek back at their apartment like nothing’s wrong, with quick, chaste, breathless kisses and a smile.

“Where’d you go?” Derek asks, genuine curiosity and nothing else.

“Just had lunch with my dad,” Stiles answers, reaching out to pull him into another sweet kiss by the nape of his neck. “Now tell me about your meeting with Chris and Scott. Were there any death threats this time?”

\----

Thankfully Derek is out by the time Stiles has to start getting ready to head over to his dad’s the next day. He’s not sure whether he would lie or tell the truth if Derek wanted to know where he was going, but either way, it’s just not something he wants to deal with yet. Stiles has zero intentions of keeping this from him after he gets the results—whatever they happen to be—but he needs to keep it between him and his father for now. It’s not—it’s not real, yet, not _confirmed_ real, and he doesn’t want to make it a big deal until he has to.

His father is all supportive smiles but his fingers are constantly tightening and softening on the steering wheel.

“Did you call Melissa?”

“Yeah. She was coming over for dinner anyway. She’s working right now, but she says she could be there if you want—she’d like to be there for you, if that’s something you’d be okay with.”

“Yeah, no, absolutely. That’d be fine.”

Once they’re done with the check-in process and they’re called back out of the waiting room, Melissa greets them with hugs and kisses on the cheek. “Hi, boys,” she says warmly.

Stiles is shown to a room where he can change into a gown. When he’s finished, he waits up on the exam table. He crosses his ankles, lifting his feet up and holding them there for a few seconds, contemplating the stitching in his socks before letting them down slowly and lifting them again. Each time he does this the paper crinkles under him, and he focuses on these little things rather than the very _big_ thing demanding his attention. His dad and Melissa are back out in the waiting room for this part and he feels strange, being alone with the thoughts that he is very adamantly not thinking.

Fortunately, the doctor isn’t long in coming. It’s a different guy than last time and they spend a few minutes discussing the situation. Stiles answers questions about his symptoms in a rasping voice and the doctor thinks they should go ahead with the scan.

Since Stiles is still in his gown, he waits just outside the exam room while the doctor goes to get his dad and Melissa.

Being in the MRI suite again is kind of surreal, given that the last time he was here was _years_ ago and he was possessed by a severely pissed fox spirit. It looks exactly the same. He can kind of imagine that no time has passed, that he’s once again a terrified seventeen-year-old kid.

As it is, he’s a terrified twenty-four-year-old kid.

He knows, obviously, that he is not currently a possessed teenager, but this whole thing is giving him the heebie-jeebies and having Derek here would have gone _miles_ towards helping him feel calm. For one thing, Stiles loves him and his presence would be soothing—but also, Derek would have been so out of place here seven years ago. It would be nice to have some kind of reminder that, yes, it has been _seven years_ since the nogitsune was expelled from him.

He might be lucid now, but if that changes, he doesn’t trust his mind to be able to differentiate _now_ from _then_.

 _Just keep breathing, there, Stilinski_ , he reminds himself as his body is slid smoothly into the machine.

He asked for ear plugs this time. The loud hammering sound is sweetly muffled and he breathes in deeply, closing his eyes and settling in for the forty-five minute session. He lets himself drift a little, thinking of nothing in particular—things he was hoping to get done around the apartment, the research he’s been doing on North American spirit lore, that kind of thing. After a while he gets tired, so he opens his eyes and stares up at the ceiling of the machine curving over him.

Every so often his thoughts end up back on the nogitsune—sometimes abruptly and sometimes in a more meandering way, and his breaths start coming faster and harsher, making his neck and chest ache. But he’s gotten better in the past few years at managing his fear and successfully staves off any panic attacks.

It’s overall a pretty stressful experience so he nearly chokes with relief when the doctor’s muffled voice announces that time is up and the surface below him starts to move. He sits up and turns so his legs dangle toward the floor, rubbing the back of his neck. It doesn’t take long for the doctor to poke his head back in.

“Alright, Stiles, let’s head back into the exam room and discuss what we’ve found.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Stiles keeps his face carefully blank as he follows the doctor back into the exam room. Melissa and his dad are there, of course. They’ll know the results. Stiles avoids looking at either of them because he needs to hear it from the doctor before he sees it on their faces, but he doesn’t shy away when his father’s hand comes to rest on his back.

One of those lighting boxes for x-ray film is mounted on the wall. The doctor turns it on and sticks a couple of images in it, images of Stiles’s brain. He’s not trained in what to look for but thinks maybe if he looks at them closely, he could guess—but he doesn’t, just scans over them like he’s taking stock and turns to look expectantly at the doctor.

“Well, Stiles,” the doctor sighs. “Unfortunately we are seeing signs of atrophy in your brain, here and here—” he gestures to the images. “And I do think it’s safe to say from what we’re seeing, and based on the family history and your symptoms, that it is frontotemporal dementia.”

Stiles swallows, blinks, unsure of what to do or say or how to feel all of a sudden. He is aware that the doctor is waiting on him to acknowledge that he’s heard and understands, so after a few seconds he manages a nod.

“Now there is still no cure at this time. From the scans and what you’ve told me, it sounds like we’re still pretty early on in the disease’s progression, but we don’t know how quickly it’s going. People with FTD live anywhere from two to ten years, so for now we just don’t know too much about how it will develop in your case. We are going to have to schedule regular visits in order to figure out how it’s progressing and what we can do to manage your symptoms.”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

The rest of the visit passes by in a bit of a blur for Stiles, but he thinks he succeeds in thanking Melissa for being there and giving her a hug goodbye. The doctor decided not to prescribe an SSRI yet for the impulsivity, so Stiles and the sheriff go directly out to the car. The early afternoon sun is hot on Stiles’s head. He texts Derek to see if he’s home and by the time he’s buckled in he gets confirmation back.

“I have to go to work after I drop you off,” his dad says hesitantly, backing the car out of the parking spot, “but I could probably take the day off…”

Stiles thinks work is exactly what his dad needs right now, so he says, “Nah, Dad, I’m good. Derek’s home, so I won’t be alone.”

“You think you’ll be okay to drive back to the apartment?”

This is something Stiles does take a moment to consider, but he’s not feeling any sort of tingliness or jelly-limbs, so he replies, “Yeah. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay, but you call or text if you need anything.”

“Yeah, of course.” He wants to say, _you too, please, call if you need anything, call if you need help, call me or anybody,_ but he doesn’t.

When they get to the house, the sheriff parks and reaches out to pull Stiles into a hard hug. They both linger there for a while and the presence of his dad—warmth and the familiar scent of home on his shirt—calms him a little.

“Love you, son.”

“You too, Dad,” Stiles says before stepping out into the driveway and heading for the Jeep.

He doesn’t really remember the drive home, emerges out of his own head in time to open the door to their fourth-floor apartment. Derek is lounging on the couch, one leg stretched out to rest on the armrest and the other foot tucked under his thigh. He’s wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt, ridden up so his belly is exposed, and as Stiles kicks off his shoes, he wants nothing more than to climb onto the couch with him, wrap his arms around his torso and rest his head on his chest—he wants to be able to cuddle with his boyfriend without this sinking feeling like a sucking wound in his body.

“Hey,” Derek calls.

Stiles smiles softly and says, “Hey there,” crossing the room. Derek reaches for him when he gets closer, but Stiles just gently slaps the bottom of his foot a few times.

“Scoot up,” he says. “Come on.”

Derek pulls his hands back a little and begins to bend his knee as if to sit up, but he stays like that for a few seconds, looking confused.

“Hey, come on, I have something to talk to you about.”

“Okay,” Derek says, pushing himself up. “What is it?”

Stiles settles in next to him, bending to rest his forearms on his knees. He makes sure he’s looking at Derek when he says, “I went to the doctor today.”

Derek’s eyebrow furrow deepens impossibly but otherwise, he doesn’t respond, just waits.

“I went in for an MRI.” He murmurs so quietly that his voice becomes husky, not loud enough to flesh out fully over the words. “You know I’ve been—not myself, lately. Neither of us said anything, but we didn’t need to…” He falters.

“You have it, don’t you? What your mom had.”

“Yeah.”

“For real, this time?”

Stiles sighs. “I think so. I’m gonna go talk to Deaton, see if he has any ideas on that front, but—yeah. I think so, I think it’s real.”

Derek doesn’t say another word until he’s crowded into Stiles’s space, pushed him onto his back and crawled on top of him, burying his face into his neck. His hands clutch at Stiles’s shirt. Stiles wraps his arms around him and inhales deeply.

“What are you going to do?” Derek asks when he’s finally settled, and the vibration of his voice tickles at the underside of Stiles’s jaw.

“I don’t know,” Stiles answers. “I don’t know if the bite would cure it—or if I’d survive. And if I did—” He swallows. “If I did, then I’d be a werewolf.”

“There are worse things to be,” Derek whispers back.

“I know,” Stiles says. “I’m sorry.” He’s sorry because he wishes the idea of being a werewolf didn’t feel so _wrong_. It feels like poison in his body, an itchy, bad feeling that he needs to get out.

“I don’t want you to die, Stiles.”

“Me neither.”

They’re quiet for a while after that. Every once in a while, Derek’s breathing gets heavy, loud, labored, and Stiles tightens his hold around him, feeling his eyes swim in unshed tears.

“If—if I don’t take the bite,” Stiles begins some time later, “they’ll manage my symptoms as best they can for a while. With—medication. Until it’s too much. I’ll have to be—I’ll have to be hospitalized eventually. My mom couldn’t really—couldn’t speak, at the end. But right now, no one knows how long I’ll have ‘til I get to that point.”

“ _Stiles_ ,” Derek breathes insistently into his neck, “you don’t _have_ to get to that point.”

“I know,” Stiles says again, though he’s thinking, _I might._ He rubs his thumb back and forth across Derek’s shoulderblade. “I’m just saying.”

Derek lifts his face out of Stiles’s neck and kisses him over and over on the mouth, fitting their lips together in firm strokes that do not open into anything more sexual but are no less intense for it, leaving Stiles gasping, eyes wet.

 _I’m sorry_ , Stiles wants to say again as he wraps his arms around Derek’s neck and breathes silent sobs into the space behind his ear. He doesn’t say it, because whatever he is _feeling_ is too big in his body, filling him up too full, and it’s terrifying and confusing and it hurts, a little, and he doesn’t know if he’d be able to explain himself.

He kind of thinks Derek gets it, though, maybe even hears the apology Stiles doesn’t say. And Derek responds by letting Stiles hold him tight and smear his skin and hair with tears and snot, pressing his large hands over Stiles’s ribcage, and saying nothing back.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait on this, you guys; I had no idea where I was going to end up taking this story when I posted the first chapter, which is ALWAYS the best way to go about this sort of thing, obviously.
> 
> Explicit sex toward the end of the chapter. I don't think there's anything about it that needs a warning, but let me know if you disagree.
> 
> P.S. THANK YOU for reading, commenting, subscribing, and leaving kudos! You guys rock. Keep doing that.

The first order of business the following day is a visit to Deaton. Derek _had_ other plans, but when Stiles tries to tell him he’s fine to go by himself, all he gets in return is a glower.

So they step into the vet’s clinic, where Deaton is just wrapping up a visit from a soccer mom and her black lab, with their hands entwined. They sit and wait while the woman signs a check and the dog paces excitedly, and Stiles leans over to whisper into Derek’s ear, “We look weird. We should have brought a cat or something.” Derek’s lip quirks up and he huffs a little laugh.

Once the woman is out the door, the lab (Bandit, or so his owner coos) bounding after her, Deaton turns to them and smiles gently. “Derek, Stiles, come on back.”

Stiles briefed him on the phone last night, so Deaton turns to them once they’re safely tucked away in the back and says, “So let me be clear. You’ve been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re concerned—it’s another nogitsune?”

Stiles sighs, scratching at his wrist. “Sort of. Not really. I just… want to be sure it’s real and not somehow supernatural again. And that includes, but is not limited to, wanting to make sure I’m not possessed by another nogitsune. Can you help?”

“I’ll do what I can,” Deaton says back, and Stiles privately has his doubts. He’s spent too much time bumbling around with the others in the dark while Deaton stood back and watched, hand on the light switch, refusing to turn it on. But he’s gotten better, and so Stiles keeps these thoughts to himself.

It takes several hours, but Deaton eventually exhausts every test he knows. Some are pretty simple, some mildly uncomfortable (like when he sprinkles a handful of some herb Stiles doesn’t recognize into Stiles’s palm and asks him to swallow it— _dry_ ). Once or twice, Stiles barely manages to make himself go through with it, like when Deaton pours some liquid into a basin of water and asks him to hold his head underwater for thirty seconds. He comes out gasping and shivering with one of Derek’s hands stroking down his spine, images of his sacrificial death swirling around in his brain with too much vividness.

(“You’re okay, Stiles,” Derek whispers into the back of his neck.)

Eventually, Deaton sighs, planting his hands on the surface of the exam table so he can lean heavily forward and look Stiles in the eyes. “That’s all I have,” he says.

Stiles knows what this means—though Deaton’s tests are certainly not exhaustive, they are enough.

Deaton looks like he’s disappointing Stiles, somehow, but the thing is—he’s not saying anything Stiles didn’t expect. This was just—a formality, really.

Stiles swallows and nods, runs a hand through his damp hair. “So it’s real,” he murmurs into the still air of the clinic.

“It looks that way.”

Derek slides his hand into Stiles’s and laces their fingers together, squeezing almost too hard. Stiles runs his thumb along the length of Derek’s index finger in a way that he hopes is soothing.

“Thanks,” Stiles rasps. When Deaton opens his mouth to protest, he continues, “No, I mean it, I—thanks.”

Now he knows _something_ , at least.

It’s not as comforting a thought as it should be.

\----

When they get home, Derek wordlessly pulls Stiles into the bedroom. They shed their socks, shoes, and jeans, and climb back into bed, lying on their sides, facing each other.

Stiles feels tired. It feels like he’s melting, molecule by molecule, into the mattress. He closes his eyes and turns his face a little into the pillow, his breath coming heavier. His fingers wiggle and stretch between them, a silent request that is answered by the feel of Derek’s hand closing around his, and seconds later the other settles on Stiles’s waist.

“How long was… how long—” Derek’s soft voice cuts itself off with a helpless sound.

“How long was my mom sick before she died?” Stiles murmurs sleepily. He doesn’t mind the question. “Four years from the time she started displaying symptoms.”

Derek doesn’t say anything to that, just pulls Stiles’s hand closer and places gentle kisses along the knuckles.

“But, you know—it won’t necessarily be the same for me.”

“There you go again,” Derek says, his voice hoarse. “Talking about it like that’s what gonna happen.”

Stiles’s eyes snap open as a hot wave of guilt rushes through him, leaving his arms feeling weak.

“I feel like you’re not going to take the bite, Stiles.”

“I don’t know,” Stiles whispers urgently, pressing forward until their chests are touching, cupping Derek’s face in his hands. “Derek, please, I don’t know.”

_It’s impossible_ , he thinks, _it’s fucking impossible, how could I ever make this choice? I’m floundering here, I need help, I_ need help _, please. I can’t do this._

Derek closes his eyes, frowning heavily.

Stiles’s thumbs stroke up Derek’s sideburns and into his hair. He leans forward, cranes his neck a little to kiss underneath a thick brow.

“I just need some time. We have a little time.”

Derek’s eyes and mouth stay pressed shut like he can’t bear to open them, like he just needs to close off, shut everything out. But he nods and lets Stiles kiss him, on the cheek, on the mouth, on the chin. Before too long, his face relaxes and his lips part to receive one of them. He throws his arm over Stiles’s middle and pulls him closer.

“I love you,” he says. “Okay? I love you.”

“Yeah, Derek,” Stiles breathes. “I love you, too.”

\----

Later that afternoon, Stiles calls Scott.

“Hey, buddy, we need to talk,” he says with no preamble. “You free tomorrow? I don’t have to work until like, two.”

“Yeah, man,” Scott replies, sounding a little bewildered and a lot concerned. “Is everything okay?”

“Uh.” Stiles winces. “Yeah. Look, we’ll talk about it then, okay?”

“Alright, yeah,” Scott says, fully aware of the lie but trusting Stiles to come clean when they meet up—Stiles knows it, and Scott knows he knows. This is kind of how they operate.

“How’s eleven sound? At Alexander’s? I’ve been dying for a stack of pancakes, dude, you have no idea.”

So the next day, Stiles steps into the diner and slides into a booth in the back, stuffing himself into the corner with his back against the wall and one leg folded up on the seat. He’s kind of regretting choosing a public place for this, but it’s a weekday so the place is pretty empty. Plus, he’s a big believer in buttering people up with food before delivering bad news.

So when Scott arrives, Stiles shoots up to greet him with a hug and several manly pats on the back, and says, “Hey, man, I’ve got this today, get anything you want.”

And Scott, like Stiles’s dad, has been putting up with Stiles’s shit for long enough that he knows exactly what that means. Thankfully, he doesn’t say anything yet, just smiles tightly and takes a seat. “You’ll regret saying that,” he promises.

Naturally, Stiles waits until at least three quarters of the breakfast combo Scott ordered is gone before he sighs and says, “Okay—so—that thing. That thing I had to talk to you about.”

Out of the corner of his mouth, around an entire pork sausage link, Scott says, “Yeah?”

Stiles feels a surge of that helpless anger (he feels so _cheated_ ) as he tries to think of how to break the news. He pushes his plate aside, a little too forcefully, then huffs out a sigh.

Scott swallows his food. “Hey, Stiles, what’s wrong?” he asks, leaning across the table to rest his hand over Stiles’s forearm.

“I’m sick, Scott,” Stiles finally croaks. “I have dementia.”

“You mean—”

“Yeah.” He swallows around the very large lump that’s risen in his throat. “I have frontotemporal dementia. I had tests done at the hospital and with Deaton and—no possessions here. I’m sick.”

Scott stares at him, his face perfectly open, like it always is, sad and determined.

“I don’t know if I want the bite, Scott,” Stiles whispers.

Scott continues to watch him for several seconds, eyes flicking over his face in rapid scrutiny. He hasn’t moved his hand.

“Derek wants me to. Of course. I _should_.”

“Derek wants you to be okay. He loves you. I do, too. And I’ll do whatever you want. If you want the bite, I’ll give it to you. If you don’t—” Here, he falters a little. “If you don’t, I’ll be there for you however I can.”

Stiles stays quiet for a few seconds, lips pulled back into a watery smile. “Love you too, man,” he says finally. “Now finish your breakfast. I’m paying for that.”

Scott manages a small returning smile, finally leaning back a bit and ducking his head to dig into his food.

A while later, they exit the diner with their hands shoved in their pockets, but they aren’t two seconds out the door before Scott has Stiles wrapped in a crushing hug. His hands are curled into fists that he presses against Stiles’s back and he ducks his head down over Stiles’s shoulder, and Stiles takes a moment to be surprised and overwhelmed before he curves his own arms around Scott and squeezes.

The warmth and solidity of his presence is incredibly grounding, which Stiles finds he _really_ needed. His future’s up in the air and he feels like he’s been up there with it since the night he woke up screaming, and Scott feels like firm earth underneath his feet. His eyes burn a little as he thinks about how _proud_ he is of the person his best friend, his brother, has become. He thinks it would be too much right now to say so, to say _I’m so glad I got to be here to watch you grow up_.

When Scott pulls back, he reaches up to brush tears out of his eyes, and it’s just like that day when he was seventeen, when Scott said, _I’ll do something_. Stiles pushes this thought away quickly, because it feels _important, real_ , the comparison, and he’s worried it’ll become too big and he won’t be able to let go. He remembers that his mom had a hard time with that—not at first, but more and more frequently as time went on until she spent most of her time either in moments _other_ than the present or too disoriented to have any opinion on when she was at all.

“ _Fuck_ , I’m scared,” Stiles bites out, leaning forward to put his hands on his knees. Scott looks to the door of the restaurant and rests his hand on Stiles’s shoulder, gently moving them out of the way before it swings open and lets out an older couple. They stare at Scott and Stiles as they walk away, but Stiles only catches a brief glimpse of them from where he’s bent over.

“Come on, let’s sit down,” Scott says, guiding Stiles down to the ground so their backs are against the wall. Stiles presses his hands over his eyes, ashamed that he’s crying _yet_ again.

“ _Sorry,_ man,” he tries to say, but it comes out more like a whine, hoarse and high-pitched. “It’s just—”

He doesn’t know how to finish that sentence, though. He cuts himself off. He’s trying _valiantly_ not to sob and so when they come out they’re small and choked and painful. Scott’s hand lands on his back and rubs back and forth between his shoulder blades.

“It’s just—”

“Hey, Stiles, you don’t have to explain yourself,” Scott says, and after a second he reaches out to wrap his arms around Stiles’s shoulders. Stiles readily leans into the hug, mashing his face to Scott’s collarbone to try to stifle the noises he’s making because they’re in _public_ , for god’s sake, and it takes a few minutes of this, of Scott’s occasional murmuring and the warm strength of his hold, before Stiles can calm down. Neither of them says anything for a long moment—Scott is still hugging Stiles but Stiles is just taking a few moments to breathe. Scott opens his mouth, inhales deeply, hesitates.

“This is really shitty,” he finally says, and Stiles snorts a laugh into his shirt before pulling back.

“You’re telling me,” he rasps, wiping his face on his sleeve. “ _Ugh_ , this is ridiculous,” he adds at the pull of tacky drying tears on his skin. “Dehydration is becoming a major concern.”

They sit in silence for a few moments before Stiles sighs. “I gotta tell people, dude.”

“Yeah.”

“You can tell Kira, if you want.”

Scott’s frame sags a little in relief; he _hates_ keeping secrets from his wife.

“But if the two of you could hold off on mentioning it to anyone else for a bit? I don’t want—I don’t want it to get spread around, you know? I want it to come from me.”

Scott looks at him, nods earnestly.

“Okay,” Stiles says, voice straining as he levers himself up off the ground. Scott follows with more grace, eyes still fixed on Stiles attentively.

“I gotta go back to the apartment, get ready for work. But, um, thanks, man.” He wants to say something else but is at a loss.

“Yeah. Yeah, of course. No problem, Stiles.”

After one more bracing hug, they part ways. Stiles climbs back into his Jeep sniffing and wiping at stray tears that are gathering slowly and dripping down through his lower lashes.

\----

Stiles deliberates for a few days on how to break the news. He writes out a list of people he thinks he should tell in person ( _Lydia, Isaac, Danny,_ it says).

Lydia looks ashen when he tells her. He wonders if she can _hear_ anything about him. She has enough hold over her abilities as his favorite wailing woman that, most of the time, she can tune it out. She doesn’t _like_ to, prefers to hear and catalogue everything—it gives her more control, and the things she hears are pretty important—and after all, it doesn’t overwhelm her anymore except in the most extreme situations—but he asked her a long time ago to refrain from listening in on his—whatever. His future? His destiny? And he definitely doesn’t want her to start now.

She looks ashen, but her eyebrows are drawn down and together, and her lips are pressed into a line.

Lydia might have insight into death, but she is not immune to it. While their friends certainly aren’t either, superhuman strength, agility, and healing tend to make mortality seem less significant, less looming to a person. But Lydia and Stiles have never had that luxury.

(Though—Stiles could, if he asked.)

While both of them are too stubborn to let fear of death (of which Stiles, at least, has always had plenty) stop them from being a part of the supernatural action in Beacon Hills, it does create a bond, to be the most vulnerable, the most mortal beings in a room, to really understand death more than the rest.

So Stiles knows that Lydia gets this. She gets what it means, that he has to either die or give up that mortality, become something he isn’t, something that doesn’t _feel_ right, something that doesn’t sit right in him. Because, though Lydia is a banshee, she is still human in many of the ways that count.

“Keep me updated,” she tells him, planting a firm kiss on his cheek as he stands at the door to her place, on his way out. “Are we still on for lunch next Wednesday?”

“Absolutely,” he says, marveling over her clear-headedness, wondering for what may be the millionth time if she isn’t some sort of demi-goddess, at least.

\----

Isaac lets Stiles into his apartment with a pat on the back. With surprise, Stiles notes that Danny is here, too, sitting on the couch. He’s sitting up straight, not relaxed into the cushions—so he’s just stopping by, maybe.

“Hey Danny, what’s happening?” Stiles greets him, reaching out to briefly clasp his hand as he sits across from him in an armchair.

“Nothing much, just stopped by to drop off a book I’m letting Isaac borrow, thought I’d sit down and hang out for a minute.”

“Nice.”

“How’s Derek? And your dad?”

“They’re fine,” Stiles says, hoping Isaac isn’t paying enough attention from the kitchen to catch his little white lie. “You—have anywhere to be?”

He’d planned on telling Danny later, but he’s basically just flying by the seat of his pants, here, so one improvisation won’t hurt.

“Not especially,” Danny replies, raising an eyebrow. “Why?”

“Well, I—I had something to tell the both of you. Just thought I’d kill two birds with one stone.”

“Sure, I’ll stay awhile.”

Isaac comes in from the kitchen then, balancing a pitcher of water, three glasses, and a bowl of pretzels. “Sorry,” he says, “ran out of cheesy puffs last time I had the pack over.”

“Oh, no big, dude,” Stiles tells him, trying to sound casual and knowing very well that he is failing. Both Danny and Isaac raise their eyebrows at him and the combined effect feels to Stiles like a finishing move in Mortal Kombat or something—he can practically hear, “ _FINISH HIM,”_ echoing in the room.

“You have something to tell us?” Isaac prompts, deftly placing his load down on the coffee table before pouring water into the glasses.

“Yeah,” Stiles says. He reaches out to accept his own glass. Feeling suddenly parched, he chugs half of it down. Isaac, who has seated himself next to Danny, reaches out to refill it. They’re both watching him expectantly.

“Um, so—” He ducks his head, scratching at the back of his neck. This is absurd, he thinks. Here they were, Danny and Isaac, having a nice little get-together, hanging out, and Stiles had to come in and ruin it with his stupid decaying brain matter.

He sighs heavily. “You guys remember in high school, the whole thing with the nogitsune?”

“Uh— _yeah_?” Isaac says, alarm and confusion creeping into the corners of his expression.

“It’s just—you remember how we—how we thought it was something else, at first? How the nogitsune was messing with me, making us think—that I was sick?”

“Yeah. No one would tell me what with, though,” Isaac says. “There was too much going on, I think, and when it was all over it didn’t matter.”

Danny nods. “I heard it mentioned, but I didn’t know what it was, either. Just heard it was a false alarm.”

“Yeah. Okay. Well. It was—my mom had it. It’s—how she died. Um. Frontotemporal dementia?” This is not coming out as eloquent as he’d hoped. “It happens when parts of the brain start to decay. The—the nogitsune messed with the scans, gave me the symptoms, made us think that I had it, too.”

Danny and Isaac’s faces are stoic and Stiles can tell they’re catching on.

“But I didn’t,” he finishes pointedly.

“But now you do,” Danny says, tone flat and matter-of-fact as always.

“Yeah.” Stiles blows all the air out of his aching lungs. “I do.”

“Is it—I mean—” Isaac starts, sounding about a hair’s breadth away from sad, from vulnerable.

“Terminal?” Stiles offers. “Yeah. The brain just keeps—atrophying. Until.” He doesn’t really need to finish that thought.

“I kind of remember,” Danny says, then. “Your mom, I mean.”

Stiles—can’t think of what to say to that, but he doubts it would make it past the huge lump in his throat anyway.

“Sorry. Um. I haven’t thought about it in years, and we were just kids then. But I guess I remember—a little—what it was like.”

Stiles forces a laugh. “Not pretty, right?”

Danny presses his lips together in a sheepish smile—an apology, one Stiles doesn’t feel he really needs.

“What are you going to do?” Isaac asks.

Stiles sighs—there it is, the inevitable question. He’s a little sick of it by now.

“Don’t know yet,” he answers. “Hey, maybe soon I’ll be able to join the pack for real.”

Isaac frowns at him, clearly not appreciative of the poor attempt at a joke. But in a moment, his stare becomes more contemplative.

“What?” Stiles blurts. Danny turns his head to watch Isaac curiously.

“Nothing,” Isaac starts. “It’s just—Erica still had the seizures after Derek turned her.”

“Yeah,” Stiles says slowly, feeling something building up in the pit of his stomach. “Yeah, I guess she did, didn’t she?”

He makes his excuses, allowing himself to be pulled into a tight hug by each of them before he leaves.

On the way home, he feels mostly numb. Numb, but not in a good or pleasant way—he feels like he’s going to go crazy, gonna crawl out of his skin. He _needs_ but he doesn’t know _what_ he needs. His fingers drum against the steering wheel incessantly. He focuses on this feeling instead of the actual reasoning behind it, the thoughts, the—the implications of what Isaac said, because he does _not_ want to go there right now.

Derek is there when he gets home, sitting at the table. Stiles sees him there, sunlight illuminating the back of his neck, and imagines going to him, kneeling next to him on the floor and pulling him into a kiss, a _rough_ one, one with intent, _plans_ on doing it, too. But when he walks in, Derek lifts his head to look at him and then gets up out of his chair to beat Stiles to the punch.

Stiles sinks desperately into the kiss, clinging to Derek’s back as Derek pushes forward, backing Stiles into the door, clenching his fist in Stiles’s hair.

Derek abandons his lips to nuzzle along his cheek before leaving a series of open-mouthed kisses on as much of his neck he can get to. Stiles pants, letting his head fall back to rest against the door, eases his eyes shut.

Derek’s hands pull at him, so Stiles shifts his weight back up to his feet and lets himself be turned and deposited over the arm of the couch. He pushes up onto his elbows, watching as Derek follows after him, insinuating himself into the space between Stiles’s knees. Body buzzing, Stiles is only too happy to accommodate, spreading his legs as Derek settles on top of him.

Derek wraps his arms around Stiles’s waist and pushes off the arm of the couch so they’re lying along the length of it instead of dangling off the side, and then he wastes no time in diving back into Stiles’s mouth. Stiles finds himself moaning low, rolling his hips against Derek, in seconds. His hands press urgently at the small of Derek’s back, and then one of them slides down into the back of his pants to squeeze and knead his ass.

Stiles _needs_ this, the contact, needs to be as close to Derek as possible—closer, if he could manage it. He doesn’t think it’s healthy, not with that strange, itchy numbness he felt on the way back from Isaac’s, but at least it looks like Derek is feeling the same way.

Stiles draws out of the kiss, reaching over his own shoulders to grab at his shirt. He pulls it over his head and chucks it aside with unnecessary force. Derek’s looking down at him with a look of vague, half-lidded amusement, his hands already roaming Stiles’s exposed torso. And that feels _good_. Stiles clutches at the front of Derek’s shirt, tugging ineffectually at it until Derek helps.

With both shirts gone, Derek leans down to kiss Stiles again, pressing their bare chests together. The sensation of skin on skin, uninterrupted, has Stiles squirming, aching for friction, but Derek pulls back, grinding with slow, barely controlled motions between Stiles’s legs.

“Let’s move to the bed,” he suggests, his voice soft and humming in his throat. “More room.”

“Yeah,” Stiles whines. “Yeah.” He surges up, keeping his hand flat against Derek’s chest so they don’t knock heads, and brings their mouths together again.

Derek’s fingers start to work at the button on Stiles’s pants—he gets them open, yanks the zipper down, and then shoves his hand inside to grasp at Stiles’s erection over his underwear.

Stiles groans loudly, tossing his head back as his groin lights up with pleasure that shoots straight to his nipples and travels to the rest of his body, too, simmering just under his skin. He takes hold of Derek’s hand and guides it to his own chest. Derek rolls his nipple between his fingers gently, kissing the hollow under his ear.

“Okay, okay, okay,” Derek murmurs, pulling back, extracting his hand, using it to steady Stiles instead. “Bed, c’mon.”

Stiles is out of his jeans by the time they get there. He tosses himself sideways onto the mattress and shifts to situate himself on his back. He spreads his legs as Derek climbs onto the bed and crawls towards him.

Stiles’s gaze wanders over Derek’s body appreciatively, lingering on the alluring swell of his biceps, the stubble on his cheeks.

“You drive me crazy,” he breathes, wrapping his arms around Derek’s neck as Derek comes to rest on top of him.

Derek presses his nose into Stiles’s throat, breathing in his scent, and just hums in response. He somehow manages to wriggle out of his pants and underwear without lifting off of Stiles’s body (and without kneeing him in any sensitive spots). As soon as that task is done, though, he pulls away to kneel, scooting back on the bed a little. Stiles lifts his knees to his chest automatically so Derek can pull off his underwear. Derek flings them to the side, and in the next instant he has his mouth on Stiles’s cock.

Too gone for words at this point, Stiles just moans, his mouth gaping open. Derek reaches out toward him with one hand while the other strokes at Stiles’s perineum, lips still closed around the head of Stiles’s dick. He makes an impatient grabbing gesture and Stiles slaps at the end table until he finds the lube. Once he’s handed it to Derek, it’s not long at all until there’s a slick finger easing into him.

Derek’s mouth pulls off and he buries his nose into the crease between his thigh and his pelvis as he works that finger inside. Stiles jerks at the feel of it and squeezes his legs together around Derek’s head, burying both hands into his hair.

Derek is quick to add another finger, and while he is gently probing around inside Stiles, he moves up to kiss him again—Stiles lets his legs fall to the side, eagerly accepts the kiss. It feels—indescribable, to have Derek’s fingers inside him, like it always does—amazing but strange, and even as the odd fullness makes him squirm, he needs _more_.

“C’mon, c’mon,” he breathes. Derek breaches him with another finger and Stiles whines, arching his back.

“Please, _please_ , Derek.”

Derek places another kiss on his lips and reaches toward the end table for a condom. Stiles wraps all of his limbs around him in anticipation.

Derek enters him quicker than usual, a little rougher, _exactly_ the way Stiles needs, and it startles a cry out of him. Derek’s head falls to rest on his shoulder and his chest heaves—he doesn’t pause at all, just builds up from slow strokes to a more enthusiastic rhythm.

“Yeah,” Stiles chokes out, throwing his head back to press into the mattress, and beyond that he is reduced to a _lot_ of wordless noise.

Derek, on the other hand, is positively talkative. He murmurs endearments in a voice that cracks. “Stiles— _Stiles_ ,” he says, “you’re so good, so—perfect—I love you, love you, Stiles, you’re—”

Stiles loves the rare occasions that Derek gets like this, it drives him seriously insane. He loves knowing that Derek is feeling so _good_ and that it’s Stiles making him feel that way—it’s incredibly hot and it has Stiles clenching and rolling to meet his thrusts, chasing his orgasm. Derek’s thrusts hit deep and stay there, fast and hard and grinding. He’s covered in a thin layer of sweat but it gathers on his lower stomach and between his legs, especially where Derek’s body meets his—the slide of their skin is slick with it.

“You close?” Derek asks. “You close, Stiles? Gonna come with me inside you?”

“Yeah,” Stiles gasps.

“God, you’re so beautiful like this,” Derek tells him, and his movements gain even more speed and strength. “ _Stiles_...”

Something in the way Derek moans his name just does it—Stiles’s hand flies to his own cock and jerks it roughly as he comes, spilling all over his stomach and his fist. His hips are snapping forward and every muscle in his body is tight as they all endeavor to experience and keep the amazing, heady sensation of orgasm for as long as possible.

Derek makes a wounded-sounding noise and continues to drive into him, dropping his head to Stiles’s collarbone.

“So beautiful,” he says again, his voice going thin and high-pitched. “Stiles, I love you.”

Stiles squeezes his legs tighter, panting hard. He’s tired and sensitive but he’ll never not love the feeling of his boyfriend and lover moving inside of him. “I love you too,” he says. “So much. Come on.”

Derek’s body tenses and his hips jerk forward in slow but powerful thrusts, no longer in a rhythm at all. He moans, loud, and Stiles feels the vibration of it down to his toes—and then he stills.

Stiles’s arms don’t let go of their hold around Derek’s neck, but his legs do open and fall to either side. Derek stays where he is, recovering from what was likely an exceptional orgasm by breathing heavily against Stiles’s skin.

Now that it’s over, it’s harder for Stiles to ignore the things that drove him—drove both of them, probably—to hot, desperate, sweaty sex in the middle of the day, the things weighing on him that he’s refused so far to even grant audience to. These things got under Stiles’s skin and he felt so _awful_ having them there, so _wrong_ that, apparently, he needed them fucked out of him.

But it didn’t work, because now he’s thinking about Erica’s seizures, about how even lycanthropy, the fucking cure-all, didn’t take them away from her.

Derek pulls out, ties the condom, tosses it toward the trash can. Stiles considers chastising him, because that’s _gross_ , but can’t muster the energy or the will.

Stiles thought he was facing an impossible choice, but maybe he won’t have a choice to make at all. He is a little surprised to find that it doesn’t feel any better.

He thinks about asking Derek if he’s okay—he thinks about telling him what’s on his mind. But it’s not the right time, or maybe he’s too much of a coward.

“You have anywhere to be the rest of the day?” he asks instead, scratching his fingers gently over Derek’s scalp. “Or do I get you to myself?”

“I’m all yours,” Derek rumbles against his chest.

“Good. Takeout? We can sit on the couch and watch Netflix… We’ll put on some foreign films and I’ll read the subtitles in silly voices. It’ll be a blast.”

Derek snorts. “As long as you pick up the takeout.”

“Deal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess I should mention that I've heard that Erica still had her seizures, just diminished in strength, and I'm taking people's word for it because I don't remember it myself. (Even if it's not true in canon, we can pretend, right?)
> 
> Edit: Thanks for your help with Erica's seizures, you guys! I'm already revising my plan for the next chapter in my head. Y'all are an exceptional audience as always, keep it up.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading and leaving kudos and comments, and SPECIAL thanks to those who helped me out with the question about Erica's seizures! I just finished this chapter like two minutes ago, maybe, so it's not at all proofread... I'll do it tomorrow.
> 
> I apologize for the wait, I've been working a ton (and still am) so I write whenever I have a minute AND the inspiration (meaning most of it was written in the past two days).

The next day, Stiles commences doing what he does best: research. He’s a little unsure of where to start, at first, but he’s just determined and obsessive enough—probably abundantly determined and obsessive, if he’s being honest. With that at his disposal, combined with the years of experience he has at researching the supernatural, he has little problem at all finding information.

He starts with the natural, the medical—years ago, he made sure he knew everything there was to know about frontotemporal dementia, and has occasionally found himself curious enough about recent advancements to check up on them, but he spends hours now jumping from article to article in order to catch up with the field. He has to force himself into a very clinical mindset, very purposely does _not_ give himself time to dwell on what he’s reading lest he get caught up in memories of his mother, or—or visions of his own future. He doesn’t want to think about the fact that he’s presenting symptoms several years earlier than his mom did, or what that might mean.

So as soon as he’s done there, he moves on to epilepsy. He isn’t totally sure what type of epilepsy Erica had, so he skims material on all of them until he narrows it down. He becomes familiar with it, its symptoms, what’s happening in the brain, prognosis. He jots down notes until his hand cramps up.

Then, he makes some calls. Cora is still in South America, deeply entrenched in the Were community there, and over the years the McCall pack has begun to tap into the network of werewolves across the United States. Stiles spends the afternoon calling people, breezing quickly through small talk—if he’s talking to a friendlier sort—getting shuffled around from person to person, gathering information in the form of anecdotes and lore. Only a few of them have any real experience with this kind of thing, with—brain disorders and lycanthropy. He speaks to a few druids, too, and gets a little further with them, but not by much.

He feels fuzzy and unfocused, agitated, like something’s buzzing underneath his skin, by the time he runs out of people to talk to. Derek’s been out of the apartment since Stiles was still working on epilepsy (carefully deflecting when asked what he was doing, of course), so Stiles changes into a loose pair of shorts and goes for a run.

A leisurely pace doesn’t cut it, doesn’t kill the _unbearable_ restlessness, so he pushes, _running_ like he’s being chased—or like he’s the one chasing. He feels angry, doesn’t know why, just knows that he is, makes him feel more like the pursuer than the pursued. He wants to chase down whoever is responsible for this and make them _pay_ , make them hurt like he’s hurting, like his friends and his dad are hurting.

But he can’t. There’s no one responsible for this.

“ _Fuck_!” he shouts, and it echoes up into trees and sky. The only reaction as he throws himself at the ground, smashes his fists into the dirt on the side of the road with a loud, painfully guttural sound, comes from a few startled birds that take off into the air, chirping indignantly.

Stiles pants, the harsh rush of breath tearing in and out of him, for only a few seconds before the aggression builds and sweeps over him again and he can’t _help_ it, he lifts up his arms and slams them down again—the sides of his hands and his wrists and his forearms connect hard with the ground and a dull, reverberating ache settles in deep, but he keeps going—barely hears the animalistic noises coming out of him.

He stops, bracing his throbbing hands against the ground, and begins to scream.

At first his body is curled in a little, but he tosses his head back and it’s _infinitely_ more satisfying to yell toward the sky. It feels like he’s physically _pushing_ it out of himself, forcing a pressure out of his body that tears jaggedly out of his throat. His entire body tenses with the strength behind the push and as the scream dies down, tapering off into something thin and breaking, he finds himself curled in again.

He feels _better_. Still angry and hurt but manageably so—he can’t feel it vibrating all _over_ anymore. His chest is aching and his overworked muscles are exhausted but he chuckles a little, leaning forward to plant his forehead on the ground. He stays there, panting hard, collecting himself until he can stand up and start jogging back home.

When he gets there, Derek is sitting at the desk in front of Stiles’s laptop. The lid is shut, but Stiles’s notes are still scattered all over the space, and Derek is holding a sheet of them in one hand, reading it from underneath drawn brows.

Stiles isn’t sure why, but seeing Derek reading his notes sinks dread into his stomach like a hot coal. He wasn’t necessarily trying to keep the research a secret, doesn’t like the idea of keeping things from Derek, but it feels like a secret just the same.

He wipes sweat off his forehead, pulls at the front of his sweat-sticky shirt, and greets, “Hey.” His voice is hoarse.

“Hi,” Derek says, and it feels tense, loaded. Stiles takes a few steps closer and he can read the paper Derek’s holding.

At the top, it says: _EPILEPSY—PRESENT but no symptoms w/Were healing—NOT DEGENERATIVE_

He underlined the last two words three times.

“Looks like you made some calls,” Derek murmurs distractedly, his gaze flicking to another piece of paper on the desk and tracking the words.

“Yeah.” Stiles doesn’t know what to say—the moment feels fragile and volatile and he doesn’t want to fuck things up.

Derek is silent for a little while. His eyes don’t move but they lose focus and his hand drifts down to set the paper on the closed laptop. He takes a deep breath and holds it in his chest for a minute before sighing.

The flow of air is soft, but Stiles isn’t fooled into thinking it feels easy coming out.

“My mom would probably know what to do. If she were here,” Derek says finally. “She knew a lot about this kind of thing. About—werewolves, I mean, the effects, the—the—”

Stiles moves forward slowly to kneel in front of Derek, fitting in between his legs; he wraps his arms around his waist, buries his face against his chest. He is too tired to feel the urge to cry, and he’s grateful for that. Derek’s arms come up to hold him and he ducks his head to rest his cheek against Stiles’s hair.

“I’m sorry you lost her,” Stiles says because he means it, and more than anything he wants Derek to understand that it wasn’t his fault.

 “Yeah. You too, you know.”

“Yeah, of course I know, big guy. C’mon, let’s get started on dinner.”

As Derek watches Stiles chop mushrooms, on standby to sauté them when he’s done, he’s a little more quiet than usual. Finally he asks, so softly Stiles almost doesn’t hear, “Did you find anything out?”

Stiles sighs through his nose, more contemplatively than anything. He takes a second to think while he uses the knife to gather up the pieces of mushroom into a little pile on the cutting board.

“Well,” he says, finally, picking the board up and handing it to Derek, who turns to dump the mushrooms into the pan. “Not a lot of studies have been done on Were healing,” Stiles teases. “You werewolves are not generally the scientific type.”

Derek gives a cursory huff of laughter, staring down into the pan.

“So werewolf healing—it—it doesn’t get rid of the problem, just helps to body cope with it better. So—Erica didn’t have to deal with her seizures at all until her healing was disrupted. So _that_ bodes well, but the thing is, FTD is different than epilepsy.”

“Not degenerative,” Derek says, echoing Stiles’s notes.

“Yeah. So I tried to see—I tried to see if anyone had any experience with degenerative disease. The most substantial thing I got was—you know the Freyer pack, up in Michigan? I talked to Mandy, she said she had a human cousin who had Huntington’s, so Krista gave him the bite. Said he was fine at first, but some of the symptoms started to come back about three years later? The twitching and stuff. But he got killed like, just months after that. Nothing supernatural, he was a construction worker and somehow got like, sawn in half on the job. It was a total accident. Which is just the shittiest luck, right?”

Derek hums in agreement.

“Right. So, the healing was helping him at first, I guess, but as time went on… See—the thing about Huntington’s is that the life expectancy is like, twenty years from the onset of symptoms. Which is like—five times as long as my mom lived.”

There’s only silence for a little while.

“I—I think I kind of figured I was gonna take the bite. Y’know? Like I needed time to think about it, to—to come to terms with it. But—uh, babe, you’re kind of burning the mushrooms.”

“ _Shit_ ,” Derek yelps, far louder than the situation calls for, yanking the pan off the stovetop and reaching over to turn off the heat. He wordlessly crosses over to the sink and turns it on, shoving the pan under the stream.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Stiles says soothingly, coming up behind him, reaching under his arms to hold him, stroke a hand over his sternum. “We have more. Or we could just order pizza.”

“Then we’d have eaten out two nights in a row,” Derek says, and his voice sounds suspiciously nasal. Stiles’s heart clenches hard in his chest. He lays his cheek against Derek’s shoulder, hugs him a little tighter, until he can speak again.

“We’ll make up for it tomorrow,” he says.

Derek sniffs wetly and his hand comes up to rub vigorously at his face. “Okay, fine.”

“Great, I’ll call Picasso’s, and then I’m gonna take a quick shower—you find a movie to put on in the meantime.”

Derek is still tense halfway through the pizza. He’s picking at his fifth slice and barely watching the movie—which is _Hook_ tonight, and Stiles knows enough about Derek to know that that’s his go-to when he’s feeling shitty. So Stiles tries to cuddle a little, and while Derek doesn’t resist, he certainly doesn’t melt into the touch, either.

Stiles presses his face into Derek’s collarbone. It feels like something’s torn up his chest until it’s nothing but a hollow, bleeding cavity. He wants to hide from this, he _desperately_ wants that, but it’s not fair to Derek. So he manages to push back the imminent flood of tears and pulls his face away, moves back a little on the couch.

“Hey, could you pause it for a second?”

Derek looks at him curiously but does what he asks, setting his pizza down on the coffee table. “What is it?” he asks.

Stiles blows out a breath, ruffles his own hair in a fit of nerves. He’s unable to meet Derek’s eyes when he says, “Look, Derek, I—it looks like I’m probably stuck going through this whole dementia thing no matter what, and I just wanted to let you know that—I’d understand if you didn’t want to, y’know, stick around.”

In an instant Derek’s hands are on his jaw, firmly pulling his head up so their eyes meet. Derek looks kind of wrecked and wild, his mouth set into a tight line.

He doesn’t say anything, just stares at Stiles, who, for his part, is mostly just confused and tired, and stares back with his mouth hanging open as best it can in Derek’s grasp.

“Jesus, _what_?” Stiles snaps.

“I think I’m mad at you.”

That’s—entirely unexpected. And quite frankly, Stiles isn’t sure he gets it.

“Wh—what? Why?”

“Why would—why would you think I would leave you? I can’t believe you’d—You think I’m that kind of person?” Derek struggles to find the words but his intense gaze never wavers.

All the tension _whooshes_ out of Stiles—he can feel it, it _whooshes_ —and he stammers, “No, _god_ , no, Derek, I—I—that’s not what I meant, _at all_.” He puts his hands over Derek’s, gently guides them into Stiles’s lap, where he holds them. “I’m sorry. I just—know how—freaking _terrible_ this is going to get and you—you’ve been so closed off tonight, it just kind of felt like…” He shrugs helplessly. “I don’t want you to feel stuck if things don’t—feel right between us anymore.”

“Stiles,” Derek breathes. “I’m sorry. This is just... I don’t—I don’t feel stuck and I never will. You and me,” he pauses to take a deep breath, “we’re always going to be right, no matter how—fucked everything else is.”

Stiles scoffs weakly, looking down at their hands as tears prick at his eyes. “Okay, well, if you change your mind—”

“I won’t.”

Stiles tries to laugh but there are already tears slowly trailing down his face. Derek reaches for him and pulls him into his lap, slowly stretches the both of them out until they’re lying along the length of the couch, propped up against the throw pillows.

“I used to watch this movie all the time when I was a kid,” Derek murmurs into Stiles’s hair as he starts the movie up again. “But especially when I was really upset. My mom would always put it in for me and make me a grilled cheese sandwich while I watched it.”

“Aw, too bad we got pizza. I could’ve made you a grilled cheese.”

Derek smiles, stroking the back of Stiles’s neck. “Maybe next time.”  
  
\----  
  
Stiles consults with Deaton the next day, bringing all his notes in to the clinic where they hole up for about an hour when there are no appointments scheduled.

“You look tired,” Deaton observes softly while Stiles sits, sifting through his papers.

“Yeah, well,” Stiles grumbles, smearing a hand over his face, “I had a hard time sleeping last night. What with the nightmares and all.”

“Fair. Now, let’s talk about what you found out.”

It feels strange, surreal, to have a lively debate about his condition rather than a stuttering, emotional conversation, to objectively discuss the implications of each line he wrote down. It’s only made possible by dissociation, in truly staggering amounts, but it feels pretty good for the moment.

“Well, Stiles, unfortunately I have to say that I agree with you. The most damning thing is Randall Freyer’s Huntington’s symptoms coming back. There’s not much room for interpretation there—I suppose it’s possible there was something restricting his healing, but it doesn’t seem likely—it would have affected the others in his pack, as well, and the Freyer pack is very large and active, so it wouldn’t have gone unnoticed. For a degenerative disease like Huntington’s, it looks like a lycanthrope’s healing just delays the inevitable. Buys time.”

Stiles sighs, eyes lingering over his notes, re-reading words that are already fresh in his memory like he’s hoping he’ll find something new and miraculous there. He doesn’t.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Just figured a second opinion would be nice before I went making any—big decisions.”

“That’s wise.”

Stiles laughs once, humorlessly. “Yeah. Well, thanks for talking through this with me. I’ll let you get back to, y’know, running your animal clinic.”

Stiles walks out into the parking lot, gets into his Jeep. He tries to start the car, but only manages to stick the keys into the ignition before he has to stop. He grips the steering wheel, feeling his skin tighten around his knuckles, and leans his head against it.

He _thought_ he had an impossible choice in front of him, but as it turns out, he never had any choice at all.

No part of this feels like a relief.

\----  
  
Stiles decides, like before, to meet with his dad first. In the interest of not being predictable, he initially resolves that he will _not_ bring food, but breaks down on the way and pulls into the parking lot of a strip mall that has both the best donuts in town and some pretty good burgers (the _best_ burgers, however, can be found almost on the other side of Beacon Hills, and Stiles, unfortunately, doesn’t have time for that).

“Hey, Dad, hope you’re hungry,” he calls out as he lets himself into the house balancing both a box of donuts and a bag of burgers, instantly cursing himself for giving everything away. Sure enough, when the sheriff comes around the corner from the living room to greet him, he looks terribly concerned.

“Does this mean there’s bad news?”

“Shit. Well, to be fair, was there any possible outcome of all of this that would have been particularly good news?”

“Yeah,” the sheriff says, almost incredulous, “I think so. I thought the one where my son _doesn’t_ die sounded pretty great.”

“Whoa, okay, Jesus Christ, Dad. Just—” Stiles hands the bag over to his dad. “Go eat, for God’s sake.”

Ten minutes later, Stiles says, “Okay, so, I don’t think I’m gonna take the bite.”

The sheriff sets his donut down on his plate and sighs heavily. He doesn’t look angry, or irritated, even. ‘Heartbroken’ comes to mind when Stiles looks at his dad’s weary face, though. He doesn’t apologize, even if he wants to, because he knows it wouldn’t be received well. Because, as he knows, when you’re sick, nothing is your fault.

“Why not?”

“Well, I did some research and—you still have your illness when you get the bite, the healing just fixes your symptoms. But with a disease like mine, it doesn’t _fix_ them so much as just—slow down the progression. And Dad, I just… if I’m gonna go through this, I don’t want to… to drag it out.” By the time he’s done it’s taking monumental effort just to keep talking—his voice is thin, cracking.  
  
The sheriff blows out a long breath. “Yeah,” he says, “yeah.” He’s not looking at Stiles, just looking sort of down and to the right, at nothing.  
  
“Dad, I _never_ wanted to do this to you. I _hate_ that I’m doing this to you,” Stiles says urgently.

“Hey—don’t talk like that, Stiles, what did I tell you before? You aren’t _doing anything_ to me. It’s not about me. This is _happening_ to _you_ ,” his dad tells him, leaning over the table to hold his gaze. “And _I_ hate that it is.”

“ _God_.” Stiles presses his face into his hands. It takes a minute until he can collect himself enough to speak again. “Me too.”

“Alright,” the sheriff says. “C’mere, buddy.” He stands and picks up his chair, placing it right next to the one his son is sitting in, and sits back down, pulling Stiles into a hug. Stiles leans into it, letting his hands fall to curl palms-up in his lap. He closes his eyes and just concentrates on breathing for a while.

“Can you imagine a werewolf with dementia, though?” he says eventually. “I’d get lost and end up in the next state.” He laughs, presses the back of his wrist against his mouth briefly. “Nah. As a human I’m already at risk—of—of hurting myself and everyone else. As a werewolf I’d be… too dangerous.”

There’s a pause.

“You’re a smart kid, Stiles,” his dad whispers.

“Yeah, thanks,” Stiles whispers back, feeling a little like his body’s full of sand. It would be so inappropriate to say _not for long_ , he knows that, so he bites back the thought, but it echoes in his head like a taunt.

\----  
  
Stiles avoids telling anyone else for a week and a half. He feels a physical _block_ whenever he picks up the phone to call Lydia or Scott and he can’t get his fingers to move in order to dial, or to text. He’s also expressly forbidden Derek or his dad to mention anything to anybody about it, not even Melissa.    
  
He doesn’t need to go back to the doctor for a while yet, so it’s almost possible to just pretend everything’s fine. Derek is more than happy to play along, even if he’s not always very good at it. Sometimes Stiles catches him staring, openly, bearing an _uncanny_ resemblance to a kicked puppy.  
  
It finally happens at a dinner party at Lydia’s. Scott and Kira are there, Danny, Isaac, and Lydia herself. Stiles and Derek arrive last, as usual, apologizing profusely for being late.

No one says anything to Stiles about the dementia, but after Lydia kisses his cheek, she puts her hands on his face and asks, “How are you?” and everyone listens in on the answer.

“I’m doin’ fine,” he tells her. “How are you?”

“Fabulous, thank you. Dinner’s almost ready, but help yourself to some hors d’oeuvres and wine.”

“All over that. Want some stuffed mushrooms, honey-bunny?” Stiles asks over his shoulder as he heads to the table where the food is set out, grinning when Derek flushes and then begrudgingly accepts.

It turns out that Lydia is biding her time until she can get Stiles alone. And, like an idiot, he falls into the trap, not even needing to be _asked_ to help her clear the dishes after dinner. He _offers_.   
  
Everyone’s engaged in loud conversation at the table, spurred on either by alcohol or the pleasure of good food and company. Lydia grabs Stiles’s arm as he’s setting a stack of plates in the sink to rinse them, and she whispers, “So is there any news? No one’s heard anything from you.”  


“ _Jesus_ , Lydia,” Stiles snaps, caught off guard. The warm feeling he had floating around in his belly, the gentle haze of wine, all of it dissipates and he feels oddly panicked and irritated, _intensely_ uncomfortable in his own skin. It takes a few seconds, but the noise from the other room dies down, which does nothing to calm him down. He’s nowhere near a panic attack, but he’s certainly not in complete control of himself, either.  
  
“I’m _sorry_ , Stiles,” Lydia says, but she doesn’t sound sorry, mostly confused and a little affronted.   
  
“Oh god,” Stiles mutters under his breath when he hears chair legs scrape against the floor. In no time at all, Scott and Derek are at the entry to the kitchen, followed closely by everyone else.  
  
“What’s going on?” Scott asks, and Stiles knows he’s defeated.  
  
“Nothing,” Lydia says, and her tone is innocent but her eyes brook no argument.  
  
“It’s fine,” Stiles tells her. To the room at large, he adds, “Lydia asked me about, uh, about my condition. And I wasn’t expecting it. But, uh, yeah, I guess I’d better let you guys know what’s been going on.”

“Stiles, you don’t have to—” Lydia starts, sounding quiet and contrite, but Stiles cuts her off.  
  
“No, yeah, I do. I’ve been meaning to, I just—” he shrugs and doesn’t finish the thought, lets it fall to the floor. He looks Derek in the eyes for a moment, then Scott, holding his gaze as he says, “I’m not going to take the bite.”  
  
He can see Scott’s face fall, and the sight is so painful he has to look away. Derek is pale and his lips are pressed tightly together, and Stiles would have thought he wouldn’t be so affected, since he _knew_ —but, come to think of it, this is the first time Stiles has _said_ the words aloud in Derek’s presence and it must feel different, to hear it said instead of just knowing, understanding an implication. He doesn’t look surprised, just— _wounded_.  
  
And everyone else looks shocked and dismayed like they never _expected this_ , and though on an intellectual level Stiles doesn’t blame them, he feels a stab of resentment.  
  
 _What a touching show of fucking support_ , he thinks. He knows it’s unfair so he gets rid of it, dashes it away with ease like he’s wiping crumbs off the kitchen counter. The ease with which it _came_ , though, and the strength of it (however momentary)—these things stick around as a bad feeling in his gut.  
  
“Stiles,” Kira starts.  
  
“No,” he interrupts, his throat dry. “I’m not, like, being stubborn or anything. It might be hard to believe, but I _do_ have a sense of self-preservation.”  
  
“Then what is it?” Isaac asks, adopting that drawling, sarcastic tone he gets that used to annoy the _shit_ out of Stiles back in high school.  
  
“If I thought the bite would help, I would take it.” Stiles crosses his arms over his chest, hunching his shoulders, and pauses to let that sink in. “I did some research, talked to, like, a million different people, and everything I found says it would just—delay the inevitable. I’d be sick for longer—” That thought sticks his throat like glue for a second; it’s too grave and terrifying for him to lay bare in front of all of them. He swallows thickly. “Besides, can you imagine a werewolf with dementia? That would be a nightmare. No one wants that, least of all me.”  
  
No one says anything for a few moments and Stiles is about ready to bolt from the room or something, anything to escape the _profound_ awkwardness, before Kira makes a strangled sort of noise and dashes forward to slam into him. He stumbles backward, but her arms have come up to wrap tightly around him as she tucks her face into his chest.  
  
She’s _crying_. Stiles has no idea what to do. He glances, desperate and bewildered, first at Scott, who shrugs, and then between the rest of them. No one is of any help, which is utterly unsurprising.  
  
“Heyyyyy,” he starts, tentatively, patting her back and grimacing at himself.  
  
“I’m sorry!” she half-shouts into his shirt, which is starting to feel _wet_. “I’m _sorry,_ I just—I—I—I’m _pregnant_!”  
  
“ _What_?”  
  
“I was going to announce it during dessert!” she manages before she’s overcome with sobs.  
  
“What, are you kidding me?” Stiles cries, face splitting into a wide grin. He puts his hands on her elbows, tries to guide her into an upright position, but she’s not calming down. “Hey, hey, come on, Kira, that’s great! Uh—aww, come on, don’t be upset, this is a happy thing! Right?”

“ _Of course_!”  
  
“Yeah! How far along are you?”

“Three months!”

“That’s great. That’s amazing. I can’t wait to meet him or her in just six months. And you and Scott are going to make amazing parents. I promise, I literally could _not_ be happier for the two of you.”

She nods, beginning to calm down.

“Yeahhhh, there you go! What was that about?”

She pulls back, wipes her eyes, fights back a sob with a hitching breath. “I just—haven’t had a chance to see you or talk to you since Scott told me what was going on, and I—I was going to announce my _pregnancy_ , like—how could I take _away_ from—”

“Whoa, whoa, let me stop you right there. Don’t—don’t worry about that. In fact, I’m gonna go ahead and formally invite you all to ‘take away’ from— _this_ —” he gestures wildly in front of himself, “like, as often as you want. Everything is not, nor should it be, about my condition, just because it’s the saddest thing going on right now. _I’m_ happy about the bun in your oven, and I want everyone else to be, too. Okay?”

She sniffs and gives a vigorous nod.

“Great. Now, Lydia, where’s that cake?”

Later that night, Derek and Stiles are tucked into bed and Stiles is exhausted enough that he thinks he’ll sleep pretty decently. He’s curled up against Derek’s side, using his substantial chest as a pillow, and he’s drifting contentedly in that place just a step above dozing.

“I’m gonna make a great uncle,” he murmurs, turning his face further into Derek’s shirt.

“Yeah,” Derek says fondly, his thumb rubbing back and forth against Stiles’s back. “That’s gonna be the luckiest kid in the world.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the timeline I half-assedly constructed in my head Derek is a late eighties/early nineties baby and I don't care if that's remotely accurate. Point is, he totally would have been raised on Hook.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi y'all, sorry it took me so long to update. As per usual, I had crazy writer's block (and my work schedule is pretty intense) and then suddenly wrote thousands of words in a short amount of time. At least it's a longer one this time!
> 
> Recap of the work so far, in case you need it: Stiles gets diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia. He tells his dad/Derek/the pack and spends some time thinking about whether or not he's going to take the bite. After doing some research, he determines that taking the bite wouldn't cure him, only prolong his suffering. Also, Kira reveals that she's pregnant with Scott's baby.
> 
> I think that's pretty much it so far. 
> 
> I watched season 4 after writing much of the chapter. I think in the show they essentially revealed that Beacon Hills is not super far from the coast, which goes against some of what I've written here, but whatever, it's fanfiction.
> 
> Enjoy!

Stiles brings Derek along to his next doctor’s appointment, which takes place just days after one of Kira’s. She’s at about four months, now, and at her next appointment they’ll find out the baby’s sex. Stiles has been _insanely_ excited, and he’s got babies on the brain for probably half of his waking hours. On one memorable occasion, he called Kira in the middle of the night to talk about prenatal recipes, which he’d already been looking up on his laptop for a few hours. She was too disoriented to do anything but listen incredulously as he rambled for a few minutes until Scott took the phone and patiently explained that Kira needed her rest so that she could make the healthiest little half-werewolf, half-kitsune baby possible. Stiles instantly felt terrible.  
  
“Shit. Sorry. Yeah, yeah, you’re right, you’re totally right,” he said, feeling stupid and exposed. The dark apartment, empty except for a sleeping Derek tucked away in the bedroom, seemed huge around him all of a sudden.  
  
“You should try to get some sleep too,” Scott said, not sounding the least bit irritated that his best friend had bothered him and his wife in the dead of night.  
  
“Oh—yeah. I guess I didn’t realize what time it was,” Stiles lied. “Sorry, dude.”  
  
So a couple days after Scott and Kira go in to the doctor to check up on the new little life they’ve created, Stiles and Derek go for an altogether different purpose. The juxtaposition is not lost on Stiles, and it makes it just a little harder to walk into the main entrance.  
  
Derek is nervous—he introduces himself to the doctor with an earnest handshake, a look of concern on his face.  
  
“Great to meet you, Derek,” the doctor says good-naturedly. “Please, sit down.”  
  
“Of course.” Derek sits back down in his chair in the corner, perched on the edge of it like he’s gearing up to stand at the first sign of trouble. Stiles smiles over at him, soft and languid, hoping it will soothe him a little.  
  
“Alright, Stiles. We’re going to do some tests today, just to establish a baseline for you. We’ll test your memory, impulsivity, empathy, your language skills, your physical dexterity… We’ll talk a little more informally about things, just to see where you are. Now, I’ve looked over your mother’s chart and she didn’t experience difficulties with her motor control or linguistic faculties until very late in her illness, when most of her functioning was compromised, but there are really no rules here in terms of how closely your symptoms will match hers. Have you been experiencing… difficulty finding the right words, or—have you been saying things that don’t make sense, contextually? Any problems with coordination or swallowing? Tremors?”

Stiles swallows instinctively, then scratches the back of his head, embarrassed. “No. Nothing like that.”

“Great,” the doctor murmurs distractedly, scrawling something on his clipboard. “We really don’t expect to see much of that kind of thing right away, if at all. Now, Stiles, as this progresses, you might find it harder and harder to tell that your own behavior is abnormal.”  
  
This isn’t a surprise, but the thought still has his body tensing in something that feels like terror. He remembers—one day, after things started getting pretty bad with his mom, Stiles’s grandmother came over to watch him while his parents went to the hospital for one of his mom’s appointments. So far, his mother had been having a pretty lucid day, sitting with him while he read one of his favorite books and running her fingers through his short hair. She made him a tuna salad sandwich for lunch. But she sulked and snapped more and more as the day went on, whenever her mother or husband spoke to her.  
  
When the time came to leave for her appointment, she refused to go. At first everything seemed pretty okay, like they’d be able to just guide her out the door like usual even though she was protesting, quietly, under her breath, but when her husband touched her elbow, she jerked it away.  
  
“There’s nothing _wrong with me_ ,” she insisted, grinding the words out. She sounded a little like she was trying not to cry. Stiles remembers being so scared, sitting on the floor in front of the couch with his book lying forgotten in front of him. The cover flipped closed on its own without his hands holding it down, and he lost his spot.  
  
He watched his mom stare down at the kitchen table where she was sitting, hunched, her body wound tight with agitation and he didn’t understand—of course there was something wrong with her, the doctor said so, he could see it, everyone could, why—why was she saying that? It didn’t feel like a lie to him. The full realization of what was happening never hit him, really, not on an intellectual level, but he _knew_ in a way that he could feel in his gut as fear, consuming and paralyzing.  
  
“Claudia, honey, come on. It’s just a doctor’s appointment.”  
  
“No, don’t—I’m not _stupid_ , I know why we’re going. There’s been a _mistake_ , I’m fine, _I’m not crazy!_ ” she finished in a quiet hiss. Stiles could see tears in her eyes.  
  
Stiles’s grandmother seemed to remember him then, came over to help him off the floor. “Come on, sweet boy,” she said, guiding him away by the hand. “Let’s go to your room.”  
  
“My book,” he whispered, too scared to let his voice go any louder. He didn’t want to attract the attention of his mom or dad, didn’t want to interrupt or get in the middle or be in trouble. He just wanted out. So he snatched the book off the floor quickly and let himself be led to his room.  
  
His grandmother didn’t stay in there with him, but he felt safer there. He left the door cracked open a little and sat down next to it to listen, drawing his knees up toward his chest.  
  
It didn’t take long for his mother to start screaming. He flinched when he first heard it, wrapping his arms tight around his legs and hunching down to hide his face, but he didn’t leave his spot or stop listening. Eventually, he worked up the courage to crawl out of his room and down the hall so he could peek downstairs. He caught a glimpse of his father guiding his mother out of the front door as she struggled, wailing helplessly, more sad and afraid than angry anymore.  
  
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she cried, and Stiles’s dad pressed his cheek into her hair, holding her wrists, murmuring softly at her. They managed to get out the door and Stiles’s grandmother closed it behind them.  
  
Stiles hasn’t thought about that in a long time. A shudder runs down his spine.  
  
“So,” the doctor continues, “it would be beneficial to you to have one or two people—Derek, your dad, maybe, just one of them at a time—come with you to each of these appointments from the beginning. And maybe have those around you help you keep some kind of a log of your symptoms so we can all better track the progression of your illness and understand how to treat it.”  
  
“Yeah,” Stiles rasps. He clears his throat. “Yeah, that sounds fine.”  
  
“Great. Now, Stiles, you’ve already been experiencing difficulty with nightmares and sleepwalking—has it worsened since the last time we talked?”  
  
“No, not really. Uh, but—it’s not better, either.”  
  
“Okay. If you’d like, you can use over-the-counter sleep aids, but at this point, I wouldn’t recommend it. If the problem worsens down the line, we can prescribe you something.”  
  
“Yeah, no, I—wanna hold off on that as long as I can.”  
  
“I understand. What about the impulsivity?”  
  
Stiles swallows again, fidgeting a little. He thinks about calling Kira in the middle of the night. He thinks about how harrowing driving has become since he noticed those little lapses in attention that cause him to do things like start switching lanes without checking—he thinks about putting things back in the wrong spots at home, he thinks about leaving the apartment without really thinking about it in the middle of the day and finding himself walking around through the Preserve or downtown without remembering making a conscious decision to go anywhere at all.  
  
“Um, yeah. It’s—getting worse.”  
  
“How so?”  
  
“I mean, I can—stop myself from doing things if I’m thinking about it, but—a lot of the time I’m not. And I’m just finding more and more that—I’ve done something weird or wrong or—even dangerous without realizing it.”  
  
The doctor nods. “Okay, dangerous like how?”  
  
“Depends—mostly like, not being careful enough when I’m driving. Um—the other day I was measuring milk to heat on the stove and I ended up putting the measuring cup on the burner instead of the saucepan. I didn’t realize—I walked away and a few minutes later it shattered. I had no idea what it was at first on the floor, it looked like ice…” He trails off, scratching absently at his wrist, ready to crawl out of his skin. “Stuff like that.”  
  
“Okay,” the doctor says, nodding. His tone remains mild and it’s sort of a relief, a balm against the burn of humiliation. “It sounds like you’re at a point where you’d really benefit from medication to help you manage those symptoms, so I’m going to go ahead and write you a prescription. Should I call it in to your pharmacy?”  
  
“Yeah. That’s—fine. That’s fine.” Stiles feels the stirrings of some feeling, some big feeling, but he can’t tell what it is yet, just senses it starting in his stomach and the tips of his fingers. “Actually, if you just write it out, we can just—take it in after this.”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
Derek looks between him and the doctor, then back to Stiles, reaching out to take his hand. The pad of his thumb, warm and soft, strokes a line across Stiles’s knuckles. Stiles squeezes his fingers down around Derek’s hand and then releases in a swift and thoughtless reaction, a desperate response to the warmth and comfort of the familiar touch.  
  
The rest of the visit goes by at a pretty quick pace; they cover a lot of things in a pretty short amount of time, moving from test to test as the doctor writes in Stiles’s chart. Derek is always hovering at Stiles’s side, touching him in some small way whenever it’s appropriate to do so, and Stiles is grateful for the contact.  
  
“Okay, Stiles,” the doctor says after they finish the last exercise.

Stiles feels exhausted, too exhausted to deal with any more of this today. He wants to go home and watch TV or play some stupid video game.  But he forces himself to nod and listen attentively.

“We’ll hold off on more imaging for now and just use your initial MRI for our baseline there.  We can’t say much about what these results mean yet because we haven’t tested you on these things before. I will say that your scores for impulsivity were above average, but all of the rest of your scores are looking pretty excellent except for memory. There are still several typical symptoms of FTD that will show up that we won’t be able to test through these exercises—sleep issues or episodes of confusion, for example, which you’ve already mentioned you’ve been experiencing—so please make sure you’re journaling those as well as those that we _will_ be testing, so that we can keep track of these things as best we can. Sound good?”  
  
“Yes. Yeah,” Stiles says.  
  
“Great. Do you have any other questions or concerns before we say goodbye? Anything you’d like to talk about?”  
  
Stiles thinks about this for a short moment—he wants to say yes, because it feels like he does want to talk, say something—ask a question, shout for help—but there’s no way he can decode his thoughts or the feeling in his guts, so he shakes his head. “No, I’m good,” he says instead.  
  
“Alright, let me write you this scrip, then, and we’ll be all set here. Don’t forget to make an appointment on your way out—since we’re not sure how quickly the symptoms are going to progress, let’s do two months out. Does that sound okay?”  
  
“Sure,” Stiles says, reaching out to take the slip of paper as the doctor tears it off of the pad and hands it to him.  
  
While they’re on their way out, Derek’s arm settles across Stiles’s shoulders, warm and heavy, remaining there as they check out and make the next appointment. As they approach the doors, just inside the entrance, for a moment, they’re alone; no one is coming in and the hall is nearly empty behind them. There are just a few nurses, walking away or standing at the station with their heads bowed over patients’ charts or paperwork. Derek pulls Stiles aside, toward the wall, keeps on pulling until Stiles is wrapped in his arms.

 

Stiles feels strange, too much and nothing at all, both at the same time. He leans into Derek’s body, resting his head against his shoulder. His arms stay at his sides, immovable. It helps, just being held, the sensation of being close to another person, that— _magnetism_. Derek is warm, present, and solid, and he loves Stiles, and it all becomes manageable for a minute.  
  
“Okay, let’s go,” Stiles says after a moment, his voice thin and reedy. “The pharmacy’s gonna close soon.”  
  
They climb into Derek’s car and Derek drives them over to the drug store down the street from their apartment. Stiles heads straight to the pharmacy counter in the back to hand the prescription over, confirm his information, set up an auto-refill while Derek pokes around the aisles.  
  
The pharmacist tells Stiles it’ll be a few minutes to fill the prescription, so he wanders over to where Derek is and laces their fingers together. They browse through the aisle of seasonal miscellanea for a bit—Derek takes a Halloween-themed headband off the shelf and fits it carefully onto Stiles’s head, pressing the back of his hand to his mouth to contain his laughter at the plastic jack-o-lanterns protruding from it, gently bobbing in the air.  
  
“Very cute. It’s a good look on you, Stiles, really,” Derek chuckles. Stiles just stares at him flatly.  
  
“Prescription ready for Stilinski,” the pharmacist’s assistant calls over the PA.  
  
“Oh, that’s us,” Stiles says, pulling the headband off and tossing it back onto the shelf. “Come on.”  
  
They get back into the car a few minutes later. Stiles is clutching the bag with his new medication inside, wrinkling the paper with his tight, sweaty grip. The light mood they managed to capture inside the store is gone, and the air between them has become tense again, charged with heavy, unspoken thoughts. They stay silent through the short ride home, though the hand that Derek’s not using to steer rests on Stiles’s knee the whole time.  
  
Derek heads to the bathroom as soon as they get in and Stiles walks with leaden steps to sit at the table. He rips open the bag and reaches inside, pulls the bottle out.  
  
It feels like too big a step. His hands are trembling just slightly when Derek comes out of the bathroom and makes his steady way over; Stiles has made no progress toward taking his first dose.  
  
“Let’s go get some fries,” Derek suggests, rubbing a broad hand up Stiles’s bicep.  
  
“Yeah,” Stiles says before blowing out an uneven breath. “Fries. I’d like that.” He stands up, leaves the prescription bottle on the table. He wipes his hands on his thighs in a vigorous rhythm.

Derek and Stiles walk to the diner a couple blocks away from their apartment, both quiet. Stiles holds onto Derek’s elbow as they go, looking at the sidewalk, and neither of them speaks much while they split a plate of chili-cheese fries.  
  
“Hey,” Derek says, nudging Stiles’s arm on the table when the plate is almost empty. Stiles has been staring down at it for a few minutes, pushing a single fry around in the remnants of the chili. He looks up then, raising his eyebrows inquisitively.  
  
“Still want to go to the ocean?”  
  
Stiles gapes at him for a few seconds, still holding the fry against the surface of the plate.  He swallows hard, drops the fry. His eyelids flutter and his voice cracks a bit as he asks, “What?”  
  
“The ocean. You mentioned a while ago that you hadn’t been there in years.” Derek speaks calmly, casually, as if this is something they just _do_. “You wanna go now?”  
  
Stiles takes another few seconds to let the thoughts stop whirling around in his head, and finally he says, “Yeah. Okay. Let’s go.”  
  
“Great,” Derek says, and he grins widely, looking fond and just— _happy_. Stiles marvels at this for a moment, amazed and—inspired—touched—that he can be so purely happy right now, here, with Stiles, when they’re—when all of this is happening and they’re going to the _ocean_.  
  
“Yeah,” he says again, inexplicably feeling a rush of excitement.  
  
“I’ll pay if you get the tip,” Derek tells him, already halfway out of the booth, pulling his wallet out of his back pocket. Stiles leaves a five-dollar bill on the table, more than the fries themselves cost, and hurries after him.    
  
When they get home, Stiles digs his old, empty backpack out of the closet and stuffs his bathing suit in it, proclaims himself ready to go. Derek pulls him close, kisses him gently for a long time, framing Stiles’s jaw with his hands while Stiles’s arms come to rest around Derek’s waist.  
  
“We’re gonna need some other things, too, Stiles,” Derek murmurs, teasing, after he ends the kiss. “Go get a couple of beach towels, okay? Like—three or four of them. And pack yourself a change of clothes.”  
  
“Sure,” Stiles says breathlessly, watching Derek stride toward the kitchen. He’s not convinced they really _need_ anything else, could probably just go like they are and swim naked, let the air dry them out—but he goes to do as Derek asked.  
  
He’s squatting down in front of his dresser with the towels balanced in a stack on his legs, gathering a change of clothes, when he starts to feel scared.  
  
What the hell are they _doing_? Stiles is going to get—ideas like this, urges to do things, more often as he gets sicker, even with the medication to help manage it. That’s what this _is_ , that’s what it was when Stiles brought it up the first time, months ago, before they knew what was happening—this is just Stiles being sick.  
  
His hands are shaking and he feels a little dizzy, a little displaced, when Derek walks in. He hasn’t moved. He’s still kneeling, holding onto the edge of his shirt drawer, and the towels are still resting on his lap.  
  
“Hey, you okay?”  
  
“ _Derek_ ,” Stiles says. “Why are we—why are we doing this?”  
  
Derek doesn’t say anything. Stiles looks up at him, sees that he looks concerned and just a little unsure.  
  
“I mean, why—you shouldn’t be indulging me. This isn’t a good idea, this is—this is crazy.”  
  
“Hey,” Derek says sharply, coming to kneel next to Stiles on the floor. Stiles wobbles a little, losing the balance of his squat, and the stack of towels wobbles precariously with him. Uncaring, he lets himself fall into a seated position, staring up at Derek’s stern face. He feels lost, silently pleads with Derek to make it better somehow, though he doesn’t know where he could begin.  
  
“Stiles, you aren’t crazy. Okay? I don’t want—I don’t want you to say things like that. I don’t want you to think like that.” Derek nudges the dislodged pile of towels out of the way and sits down, curling his hand around the back of Stiles’s neck and rubbing his thumb through the hair behind his ear.    
  
“But this is me being impulsive,” Stiles says urgently. “When I said I wanted to go to the ocean, that was my _dementia_ talking. You shouldn’t be _indulging me_.”  
  
“You said that,” Derek tells him patiently. “But—why not? What’s so bad about the two of us taking a trip? Right now?”  
  
Stiles watches him, tries to think of a response, but it’s hard.  
  
“Stiles, you’re still you. The—the impulsive thoughts and ideas you get, they’re still you. And sometimes they’ll be—genuinely bad ideas, or too much, but today—today it can be okay.”  
  
Stiles stays silent, feeling winded and close to tears but no longer quite as nervy.  
  
“Here, look. We don’t have to go if you don’t want to. I’m not gonna be disappointed if we stay in and watch movies tonight. But if you still want to go, even a little, just—don’t worry about what this is and _do this_ with me.”  
  
“Okay,” Stiles whispers.  
  
“You sure?”  
  
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m sure.” He clears his throat, says it again, stronger this time.  
  
“Great. C’mon, it’s gonna take a few hours to get there,” Derek says, beaming, and Stiles is so taken with the sight that he leans forward and presses a kiss to the corner of his smile even though the logistics don’t quite work out and it’s ungraceful.  
  
They grab the towels off the floor and fold them back up. Derek’s packed a bag already, a duffel bag with two blankets and a bag of snacks. There’s just enough room for the four towels, and they put their bathing suits and a change of clothes each in Stiles’s backpack.  
  
“We’ll stop somewhere for dinner on the way,” Derek says, lacing his fingers with Stiles’s as they sit in Derek’s car.  “Ready to go?”  
  
“Absolutely,” says Stiles, feeling much lighter than he did just minutes before. “Hit it, dude.”  
  
The drive ends up taking longer than expected. After they stop at a little diner for dinner and dessert, they pass a roadside fruit stand and Stiles insists on stopping there. They converse with the guy who runs it for a little while and buy a couple of peaches and a carton of strawberries before taking off again. They stop to sit on the hood of the car at the top of a hill to watch the sun set and eat the peaches. Stiles wipes some of the juice off of his fingers onto Derek’s jeans and Derek retaliates with a mock growl, sliding his sticky-wet hand over Stiles’s cheek. Stiles laughs, grabs Derek and fists his hands in the back of his shirt, kissing him. Derek smiles lightly into the kiss, dropping his peach in favor of holding on to Stiles. It rolls off the hood of the car into the dirt, but he doesn’t care.  
  
The car breaks down on the side of the road a while later. Stiles has made it a point to learn as much about cars as he could in the last few years with the increasing number of breakdowns his own Jeep suffers. Between the two of them, bickering lightly, taking turns working under the hood while the other holds the Maglite steady, they manage to fix the problem eventually, but it’s still nearly midnight when they finally reach the ocean.

It’s perfect. The water is about as calm as it must get, and the stars are plentiful, and there’s no one out there but them. A ship’s lights are visible in the distance and it’s still warm. They change into their bathing suits just outside the car, not bothering with the nearby bathrooms. For the moment at least, there’s nobody to see them.  
  
Stiles grabs Derek’s hand and drags him out to the water. It’s _freezing_ at first, and Stiles hesitates to go in to crotch level, but Derek has already gone in farther and he tugs playfully at Stiles’s arm until he falls in. Stiles comes back up laughing, spitting a bit of water out of his mouth, dives at Derek to tackle him under.  
  
They haven’t been in the water for more than a half hour before Stiles kisses Derek hard, clinging to him with his arms and his legs, trying valiantly not to grin for fear of breaking the kiss.  
  
Derek grinds up against him, slips his tongue into Stiles’s mouth.  
  
“C’mon,” Stiles gasps, tugging ineffectually at Derek’s wet, bare skin. “Let’s go back to the car.”  
  
They run across the sand to the parking lot. Stiles swats at Derek’s ass as Derek wrenches open the door to the backseat.  
  
“Let’s dry off,” Derek says, reaching for the duffel bag in the back.  
  
“Wait!” Stiles breathes, yanking at the waist of Derek’s shorts. “Let’s just make out a little first,” he says, pushing Derek up against the side of the car. “Huh?” His tone turns sultry against Derek’s mouth. “Still all wet—you look really good like this, you know.”  
  
Derek closes his eyes, moaning as they kiss, slipping a hand down over Stiles’s ass.  “Mm, come on,” he whispers. “Wet swim trunks are not remotely a sensual experience.”  
  
Stiles chuckles, letting Derek go grab the towels. He slips off his bathing suit, leaving it on the asphalt. He plucks one of the towels out of Derek’s hands and spreads it out over Derek’s shoulders, rubbing it slowly over the back of his neck. “Hey, get naked and I’ll dry you off.”  
  
“Give me a second to put some of these down in the back seat,” Derek replies, pressing himself back against Stiles’s crotch as he leans over to place the towels. “Don’t want to ruin the leather.”  
  
“You are incredible at dirty talk, have I ever told you that?” Stiles murmurs, putting his hands on Derek’s hips to feel the bones there.  
  
Derek laughs, then turns around and drops his shorts. His gaze is hooded and fond as he watches Stiles draw closer—close enough that their erections brush against each other. Stiles hums at the contact, leaning forward to drag his lips over Derek’s cheek.  
  
“Come on, get in,” Derek whispers. Stiles grins and does just that, followed closely by Derek, who closes the door and grabs him by the shoulders, maneuvering him to sit in the middle of the seat, facing forward.  
  
“I want you like this,” Derek says, moving to straddle Stiles’s lap.  
  
“Oh, you do?” Stiles asks, planting the ball of his foot on the back of one of the seats and using it as leverage to grind up against Derek.  
  
“Mm,” Derek hums in confirmation, nodding as he ducks his head to kiss Stiles again. He spreads his legs wider until there’s no space anymore between them, pushes back against Stiles.  
  
“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Stiles gasps.  
  
“Yeah—nnh—sex out here, on the beach, in the middle of the night—no one around—”  
  
“God,” Stiles chokes out, pressing his forehead to Derek’s chest, laying the palms of his hands against his ribcage. “I just…” He doesn’t finish, doesn’t lift his head, only begins to move his hips faster.  
  
Derek reaches for the backpack, stuffed into the corner of the seat by the other door, and opens the zipper into the front compartment one-handed. Stiles didn’t pack anything in there, but Derek’s fingers fumble and a little bottle of lube and a couple of condoms fall out onto the seat—he must have snuck them in there when Stiles wasn’t looking.  
  
“ _Two_ condoms?” Stiles gasps, delighted, teasing. “ _Somebody_ had big plans for the night.”  
  
Derek rolls his eyes as he shoves the lube into Stiles’s hands. “Shut up and get to it, Stilinski.”  
  
Stiles obeys, leaning forward to latch his lips onto Derek’s neck as he flips the cap and overturns the bottle, shaking it so that his fingers are soaked in an unnecessary amount of lube. He tosses it aside, pulling back, and lightly slaps Derek’s thigh. “Up, up, up,” he urges.  
  
Derek lifts up onto his knees, curving his neck and shoulders in order to fit in the small space, but he still presses up against the ceiling. At the first touch of Stiles’s cold, lube-wet fingers on the bottom swell of his ass, Derek jerks in surprise, knocking the curve of his neck and the back of his head against the ceiling harder and they both laugh breathlessly for a moment. Stiles’s grin gains a mischievous intent and in the next instant, he’s sliding two fingers between Derek’s cheeks, landing them firmly but gently on the soft skin of his entrance. Derek shudders, curls down toward Stiles.  
  
“Come on,” he whispers insistently, his tone heated. His eyes are shut and his lips parted, and his hips rock slightly, an encouragement.  
  
Stiles takes his time, though, backs off a little from that spot in order to rub a line from the very beginning of the cleft of his ass all the way over his balls, back and forth, slicking up the area with the lube on his hand. The idea of their bodies coming together, that wet slide, not just _inside_ Derek but in all the places their skin will touch—it makes him feel positively hazy with desire.  
  
When Stiles does slip his middle finger into Derek’s body, Derek’s back arches and his hips press forward until the tip of his heavy cock bobs in the air right in front of Stiles’s face, and well—Stiles is not going to ignore that opportunity. He dips his head, sticks his tongue out to trace the curve of the deeply flushed glans as he waits until the resistance eases and he can work his finger in farther.  
  
Derek’s breath hitches at this like he’s helpless and Stiles is so taken with the sound.  
  
Stiles places open-mouthed kisses at intervals along the length of Derek’s dick as he slowly slides the first finger in all the way. He’s too impatient, like always, and it doesn’t take him long at all to start poking around with a second finger.  
  
“Not enough lube,” he mutters apologetically into Derek’s pelvis, where he’s been licking broad strokes across Derek’s skin. He pulls out, reaches over to find the bottle again, and squeezes a puddle of it into his palm, rubs his hands together until they’re all soaked.  
  
“You’re ridiculous,” Derek says, voice cracking and going breathy when Stiles begins to play with his rim. “ _God_.”  
  
“You can never be too lubricated,” Stiles jokes in return, but he doesn’t sound or look like he’s joking. His half-lidded stare is fixed on the spot where his fingertips are breaching Derek’s body and his mouth gapes open. His other hand grips Derek’s thigh tightly.  
  
“Come on, Stiles, please—” Derek says, and the muscles in his abdomen ripple temptingly with the gasp that follows. Stiles leans forward to kiss him just below his sternum and presses his fingers farther inside, wiggling them a little to ease their passage. His palm flattens against Derek’s perineum and Derek’s balls rest heavily on his wrist. He moves his fingers slowly, probes until he finds the prostate. Derek’s thighs are trembling when Stiles adds a third finger, and it’s not long before Derek is trying to reach down and grope along the seat of the car for the condom.  
  
“I’m ready,” he’s whispering. “I’m ready, I’m ready, come on...”  
  
“Okay.” Stiles finds the condom and tears open the package. He doesn’t realize until he’s rolling it on how badly he’s been neglecting his cock—the touch makes him moan aloud. He makes quick work of applying the condom and making sure it’s slick enough, knowing that the tight squeeze of Derek around him will be far, far better than the stroke of his own hand.  
  
“Alright—ready?” he asks, holding himself in place.  
  
Derek tries to scoff in return but he’s too wound up, and the effect is ruined by the eager and determined looked on his face as he shifts his knees apart and lowers himself down. He curls his hand around Stiles’s, gently changing the angle of Stiles’s dick until the head settles against his entrance. Stiles closes his eyes in anticipation. Derek takes a deep breath and pushes down.  
  
Stiles’s eyes open again and his head falls back against the seat, and for a moment he’s distracted by the stars. The windows are fogged up, but the stars are bright enough out here that their light shines, faint and diffused, through the condensation. Derek continues to bear down, and Stiles grips his hips, presses his open mouth to his shoulder. He moans loudly into the damp skin there, squeezes his eyes shut again.  
  
“Derek,” he breathes. “ _Derek_ —”  
  
Derek settles himself into Stiles’s lap, then leans down and seals their mouths together. His hands cup the nape of Stiles’s neck but don’t stay there long—they keep moving, leaving hot, tingling imprints on Stiles’s skin. He has one palm pressed against Stiles’s abdomen and the other tangled in the hair on the back of his head when he begins rocking slowly, forward and back. Stiles leaves a long, tortured hum in Derek’s mouth, gripping tight at his biceps. The air in the car is stuffy and Stiles’s wet hair clings to his forehead—he’s beginning to drip sweat, and so is Derek. They’re soaked wherever their bodies touch and it’s perfect, it’s more than he could ever ask for.  
  
Stiles begins to thrust gently upward to meet Derek’s movements, and he breaks away from Derek’s mouth and instead kisses the base of his neck, right where it flares out into the muscular shoulder, feeling the cooling sweat against his lips. He opens his mouth and tastes with broad sweeps of his tongue. He turns his head and pushes his nose into the underside of Derek’s jaw and gasps for air.  
  
Derek leans forward, arches his back until their chests are pressed together and Stiles’s back is sticking to the leather seat. He looms over Stiles like this, and Stiles is content—as Derek uses the new leverage this position affords him to speed up the movement of his hips, working himself harder on Stiles’s cock, Stiles looks up at his face, panting harshly—his own thrusts answer Derek’s, just weaker, overcome as he is. The car is hot and the air is thick, and Derek’s arms and chest cage him in, and his body is starting to feel electrified, heavy and weightless all at once. His skin sparks with pleasure where it touches Derek’s.  
  
His muscles start to tense on their own, his hips buck harder.  
  
“I’m close, Stiles,” Derek says. Stiles drops his forehead to rest against Derek’s chest. He nods, squeezing his eyes shut—it’s the only response he can muster because he’s close, too, _so_ close.  
  
Before he can think of trying to stop it, he’s coming. He grips tight at Derek’s hips, his mouth hangs open and he shouts, without meaning to—short, meaningless noises that his gut punches out of him as all of his senses narrow down to the feeling of orgasm.   
  
He floats in a bit of a haze after the release, chest heaving, and when he starts to drift back into reality, Derek is still riding him. Stiles’s cock aches a bit, oversensitive so soon after coming, but it gives him a little thrill to have Derek using him like that, as they’re both well aware. Besides, Derek’s movements have degenerated and he’s grinding slowly, eyebrows furrowed in concentration, fist curled around his own dick.  
  
Stiles whispers encouragements, running his hands down the length of Derek’s back, over his ass, leaves one of them there to squeeze while the other slides over the back of Derek’s thigh and hooks behind his knee.  
  
A groan wrenches its way out of Derek’s throat. He pushes Stiles’s shoulder urgently, so Stiles goes, leaning back again into the seat. Derek follows, pressing the tip of his cock to Stiles’s stomach in the instant before he comes. It spills white-hot onto Stiles’s skin, and Derek clenches hard around him, entire body drawn tight.  
  
“That’s it,” Stiles murmurs, eyes half-lidded, taking one of Derek’s hands and guiding it to the mess slowly dripping down his stomach. Derek smears it a little with his fingertips, eyes closed as he rides out the effects of his orgasm. Just a few moments later, he opens them again, smiling gently down at Stiles.  
  
“That was good,” he says softly.  
  
Stiles lets out a surprised laugh, more breath than anything. “Yeah, it was. _And_ we didn’t get caught.”  
  
Derek just bends to kiss him. “Come on, you’re falling asleep.” He lifts up onto his knees a bit, lets Stiles’s dick slide out of his body. “Let’s get cleaned up first.”  
  
He uses one of the towels to wipe the come off of Stiles, who is already half-asleep and smiling drowsily at him in thanks. He removes the condom and tosses it into an empty fast food bag that’s been in the car for a few days.  
  
“Hey, don’t fall asleep just yet. At least put on some underwear.”  
  
“Ugh. Don’t wanna.”  
  
“Come on,” Derek repeats patiently, hooking the underwear around Stiles’s feet.  
  
Once they’re both minimally clothed, Derek says, “Wait here,” and opens the car door.  
  
“Hey, whoa, where you goin’?” Stiles slurs, lifting his head to squint over at Derek.  
  
“Just getting the blanket from the trunk.”  
  
“Oh.” Stiles is silent for a moment, sets his head back down and closes his eyes, but just as Derek starts backing out of the doorway, he starts speaking again. “You think of everything. I didn’t think we’d need a blanket.”  
  
“That’s okay, Stiles,” Derek says. “That’s why you have me.”  
  
Stiles lets that sink in for a second. “ _Aww_ ,” he croons finally. “That was so sweet.”  
  
“Shut up,” Derek laughs, ducking out of the car. He comes back moments later with the blanket, arranging himself and Stiles with some difficulty across the back seat.  
  
“Goodnight, Stiles,” Derek whispers. Stiles can only offer a small smile in return as he drifts off into sleep.

 ----  
  
It's still dark when Stiles wakes up. 

“Derek,” he murmurs, shoving lazily at Derek’s chest.  
  
“Hm,” Derek grunts in response.  
  
“Derek, wake up. It’s time to go home,” Stiles says, not lifting his head.  
  
Derek makes a wounded noise. He hasn’t opened his eyes yet, but he furrows his eyebrows, clearly displeased at the prospect of getting up.  
  
“You’re pouting.”  
  
“No, I’m not.”  
  
“We can sleep when we get home,” Stiles reasons, inhaling quickly to gather strength before pushing himself up onto his arms. “Don’t wanna be here in the morning in case anyone comes. Plus, I’m majorly sore from being crammed in the back seat.”  
  
“What _time_ is it?” Derek’s eyes are still closed. He slings an arm around Stiles’s waist and shifts, turning his head to press into the seat.  
  
“Hey,” Stiles says fondly, leaning down to kiss him on the corner of the mouth. This elicits a sleepy smile, which Derek quickly turns into an exaggerated frown. Stiles just chuckles at him, smoothing a finger over his eyebrow.  
  
“Come on, I’ll drive first and you can sleep in the front seat.”  
  
Derek sighs deeply but agrees, finally sitting up and squinting in the dark at Stiles.  
  
“ _There_ he is,” Stiles says, grinning, clapping a hand on the back of Derek’s neck.  
  
They get dressed, gather up their bathing suits from the ground outside the car, and take off. Derek wraps the blanket around himself and snuggles down in the passenger seat, dozing off intermittently. His hair is a mess, and it’s so endearing Stiles sometimes finds his glances lingering a little too long.  
  
His neck is aching a little from the awkward position he slept in, and maybe holding the steering wheel isn’t doing him any favors, but—he feels exhausted, in the best way possible—full-body tiredness, the kind of exhaustion that means you spent the day before doing things that were fun, meaningful, _important_. Even if those things were only important to the two of them. He feels content.  
  
The sky lightens from inky black to a deep blue after less than an hour of driving—sunrise hasn’t quite started yet, but it’s coming. Stiles turns on the radio, not caring very much what station it lands on, listens to crackling acoustic melodies as they pass over miles of asphalt.  
  
Derek wakes up for real while the sun is rising. He stretches as best he can in the space he has, then pulls the blanket off of himself and tosses it into the backseat.  
  
“Morning, beautiful,” Stiles teases.  
  
“Morning. How close are we?”  
  
“Little less than halfway.”  
  
Derek’s silent for a few moments, still waking up. “God, I’m hungry,” he says finally.  
  
“Want to find someplace to eat and then switch?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
They snack on the strawberries they bought the day before, to tide themselves over, and soon they’re following signs to another diner-type restaurant, where Derek orders hash browns and way too much meat, and Stiles gets the most ornately decked-out stack of pancakes on the menu. Derek leans over more than once to wipe a smear of whipped cream off of Stiles’s mouth or nose or cheek.  
  
Derek takes over driving, as promised, when they get back on the road. Stiles isn’t really tired enough to sleep at first, so they talk about nothing important, squinting against the bright early-morning sunlight. Eventually, Stiles does fall asleep, but it’s not long before Derek is shaking him awake.  
  
“Hey, we’re home.”  
  
Derek halfheartedly gathers their things from the back seat and the trunk, and they head inside. They strip down to their underwear again and immediately crawl into bed, pressing close to each other. The sheets are gritty with sand and salt, but nice and cool against Stiles’s skin. It feels pretty close to perfect.  
  
“Thanks,” Stiles mumbles into Derek’s shoulder, head already feeling cloudy with sleep.  
  
“For what?” Derek asks, face scrunching up in genuine confusion.  
  
“For—this whole thing. For going with me to the ocean. It was—it was good.”  
  
Derek’s puzzled expression dissolves into a serene smile. “Yeah. Now go to sleep.”  
  
When they wake up again, it’s just about noon. The sand and salt in their bedsheets is no longer tolerable, so a sleep-mussed Stiles tosses them in the washing machine. Derek starts the shower, and they brush their teeth next to each other in the bathroom while they wait for the water to warm up.  
  
They don’t get up to anything sexual in the shower—they just make out a little and run hands over soapy skin. Stiles, shampoo in his hair, grins wordlessly at Derek, who smiles back and reaches up to wipe away the suds running down Stiles’s forehead before they can get in his eyes.  
  
Derek heads to the library not long after they finish showering. Stiles opts not to come, just makes Derek promise to pick up some groceries on his way back.  
  
“Tell Mrs. Sullivan I said hi,” Stiles calls just before the door shuts, scratching absently at his belly as he ambles out of the bedroom, intent on making himself a sandwich.  
  
The prescription bottle sits on the table in exactly the same place he left it. He forgot, sometime during the drive last night, forgot about the little bottle of medication, and about the visit to the hospital.  
  
He looks at it for a few seconds, considering. Surprisingly, he doesn’t find that same drastic, heavy feeling lurking in his chest when he thinks about it, not like the day before. He feels okay.  
  
It’ll come back: the dread, the sinking in his gut. It’ll get worse and worse as his condition deteriorates, even, but for now, he’s fine with this. He’s fine, and he isn’t about to let go of that feeling while he’s got it.  
  
So he takes his first dose, struggling a little with the childproof cap, and makes himself a ham sandwich. He eats it in front of the TV, watching reruns of Law and Order, paying it barely any attention as he reminisces on thick, salty air, cold water, Derek’s sweaty skin, and the taste of ripe peaches and whipped cream.

**Author's Note:**

> My [tumblr](http://www.projectcastr.tumblr.com)!


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